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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835207">a world of new solutions</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spillentireuniverses/pseuds/spillentireuniverses'>spillentireuniverses</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lightning straying from the thunder [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different Teams, Alternate Universe - No Salem (RWBY), Blake Belladonna and Faunus Rights, Cinder Comes to Beacon Early, Dealing with the Faunus, Fighting as Character Development, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One-Sided Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna, Past Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Pyrrha Nikos is a Child Star (and Has Issues), Ruby's Pent-Up Anger Issues, Taking Backstories to their Logical Conclusion, Taking the World Seriously, The White Fang are Not Terrorists, Weiss Schnee Works Through Her Prejudices, a self-indulgent rewrite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:35:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,488</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spillentireuniverses/pseuds/spillentireuniverses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby swerves to avoid the bird. Blake waits. Weiss is two steps deeper into the forest. Pyrrha comes early. And Cinder has a different plan.</p><p>(or, Ruby, Blake, Pyrrha, and Weiss form a team in a much more complicated world. They try to, anyway. If they are to survive their first year at Beacon, they're going to have to do it faster.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>And every combination therein, Cinder Fall &amp; Ilia Amitola &amp; Mercury Black &amp; Emerald Sustrai, Jaune Arc &amp; Nora Valkyrie &amp; Lie Ren &amp; Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose &amp; Blake Belladonna &amp; Weiss Schnee &amp; Pyrrha Nikos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lightning straying from the thunder [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. THE LIFTOFF</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In another universe, Ruby swerves. The Grimm still crash the party anyway, and Beacon welcomes its new teams of starry-eyed Hunters and Huntresses.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hurtling toward the trees, with the wind rushing past and the warm metal of Crescent Rose in hand, Ruby almost missed the flash of black. It was right at the corner of her vision—there! Luckily, she was the definition of speed. She twisted her trusty scythe around, fired off a sideways shot, and felt the momentum yank her away.</p><p>The black bird flew on, oblivious. “Bye-bye, birdie!”</p><p>Ruby didn’t have time to chuckle at her own joke, unfortunately, because the trees were coming up...<em>really </em>fast.<em> It’s fine, it’s fine. Definition of speed, right?</em> It was only a little comforting when she crashed through the tangle of branches, just having enough time to propel herself out of a thicket and roll to her feet in a clearing. She glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed her botch of a landing strategy—trees, grass, a lone bunny rabbit who seemed to be judging her.</p><p>“Hey,” she huffed, “I wasn’t exactly aiming for the thorny part! I was going to go <em>pssh-pssh-pssh</em> and then flip around a tree, it was going to be awesome! The bird threw me off—" In the midst of acting out her alternate-universe landing strategy, Ruby’s brain finally caught up. The bird had thrown her off-course. Off-course meant farther away. Off-course meant farther away from... <strong><em>“YANG? YANG! YANG?!”</em></strong></p><p>Panic flooded her mind—what if she couldn’t find Yang? What if she spent the next four years with someone who thought fifteen-year-olds were dumb? What if she got stuck with someone evil, or bad at fighting, or someone who didn’t appreciate the beauty of weapons? <em>What if Yang thought she died out here</em>? But before she could take off, a deep growl shook the forest floor, and three Beowolves flattened the trees in front of her.</p><p><em>I could just leave them</em>, Ruby thought, desperately trying to route a way to her sister. But...wouldn’t that go against the very nature of being a Huntress? It was a Huntress’ job to fight the dark, no matter what. Besides, Ruby had heard the distant <em>thump</em> of Pyrrha’s spear pinning Jaune to a tree, and she couldn’t in good conscience let the Beowolves find that goof. He’d get eaten alive.</p><p>
  <em>Fine, we’ll fight them, just stop arguing with yourself!</em>
</p><p>Course decided, Ruby shot toward the one in the center, a twirling red bullet from her own scythe. Two halves fell into the grass below. Not missing a beat, she fired behind her at the second—heard the bullet skate off spines, drat—and rammed into the third so hard that Crescent Rose went all the way through. <em>I really wanted to finish in two moves</em>. <em>But it’s okay! </em>She launched off the impaled Grimm, dislodging her blade with an explosive shot that sent her backflipping toward the wounded one. One more strike would do it...</p><p><em>Sshhhk!</em> A black ribbon—a blade on a black ribbon!—flew out of the undergrowth and buried itself in the Beowolf’s back. Right between the spines.</p><p>Ruby landed anticlimactically in the grass. Calm amber eyes blinked back at her. The Beowolf dissolved.</p><p>“Blake!” Ruby said awkwardly. “I guess...we’re partners? Yay?”</p><p>Blake nodded once, sheathed her blade-on-a-ribbon, and melted back into the trees.</p><p>“Awesome. Great job, Ruby,” Ruby muttered, watching her go. But—they were partners now! What was there to do but follow?</p><p> </p><p>From a logical perspective, this wasn’t the end of the world. Blake was great! She was cool! Mysterious! They could talk about books, and—well, as Blake’s partner, Ruby would get to look at that cool weapon up close, right? Ruby kept reminding herself of this as she trudged behind Blake in long, terrible, insufferable silence.    </p><p>“So...” she ventured, wincing at the sound of her own voice. “Um, do you like the <em>Dragons of Cobaltan</em> series?”</p><p>Blake barely looked back. “Keep quiet. You’ll alert them.”</p><p><em>Blake is great! She’s cool! She’s...trying to keep us from dying</em>!</p><p>
  <em>I really wish I had Yang to talk to.</em>
</p><p>...<em>Or Mom</em>.</p><p>No. Absolutely not. <em>Bad thought</em>! Ruby envisioned slapping her brain until it obeyed; she couldn’t think of Mom, not now, not when she had to be a Huntress-in-training, not when she was so close. It would take her over, the thoughts of warm silver eyes and the scent of melting chocolate chips and the flash of a red cape out the door...no. Not now.</p><p>To distract herself, Ruby decided to try talking again. Don’t give up, right? After all, she would have to speak to Blake sometime. She lowered her voice. “I...like the ribbon.”</p><p>Blake jerked like someone had pulled her spine straight up, then whirled around. Her eyes were blazing with...something, and Ruby shrank back, holding her hands up in surrender. “What does <em>that</em> mean?”</p><p>“Nothing! I—I just—the ribbon, on your weapon? It’s a cool design? I mean, the blade is close quarters, but you put a ribbon on it and suddenly <em>bam</em>! You’ve got amazing range! And you can lasso things, I mean, it could double as a grapple, but how do you keep it from tangling, oh, and do you reinforce it with Aura to make sure nobody cuts it, and I just—I...like the ribbon,” Ruby finished lamely, forcing her mouth shut at Blake’s bemused face. The ensuing silence was, again, long and awkward. It was only the knowledge that Blake was two years older and probably didn’t want a whiny kid as a partner that kept Ruby from turtling into her hood.</p><p>But then Blake’s face dropped into a cool kind of sheepishness, a light blush tinting her cheeks. She touched the leather cord of her necklace. Ruby wanted to see what was hanging on it—a Grimm tooth? a cool bit of metal? a jewel?—but before she could ask, Blake turned around again. Only now did Ruby realize Blake hadn’t had her back completely toward her. <em>Some kind of huntress I am</em>, she thought morosely, but also, <em>she doesn’t trust me? We’re partners!</em> Sure, they didn’t really know each other yet, but if you couldn’t trust your partner, you couldn’t trust anybody.</p><p>The bushes shook, and there was a low growl. Apparently Blake had been right about the noise. Oops.</p><p>An Ursa lumbered out of the vegetation, baring its teeth. Blake raised her blade, and Ruby took up her stance at her side, trying not to feel too excited. Blake had killed the last Beowolf before Ruby could show her what she could <em>really </em>do, but this was their first fight side-by-side! She could see it now: one arcing swing through the torso, Blake’s impressed eyes, maybe a <em>Glad we’re partners</em>...</p><p>Instead, a red and gold spear buried itself in the Ursa’s skull, and a familiar frown stepped out from behind the body.</p><p>“Oh, it’s you two.” Weiss lowered her rapier with an unnecessary flourish. Ruby tried not to cringe at her imperious stare and looked off to the side instead, where a subtly frowning Pyrrha was picking her way through the bushes.</p><p>Seeing them, Pyrrha’s expression lightened. She smiled good-naturedly at Ruby, and...well, it wasn’t every day the Mistrali tournament champion smiled at you. It was a nice, if practiced, one. “We heard the Beowolves and came to help. We thought someone might be hurt.”</p><p>“Oh, no, we’re...fine.” Ruby rushed to reassure her, but the words died on her lips when Weiss directed another cutting glare toward her. Blake eyed them all warily.</p><p>“That’s grand, then,” Pyrrha said. She did sound relieved, and she shot Weiss a disapproving look which finally made the girl let up, albeit with an annoyed huff. “I believe the relics are that way. Shall we go together?”</p><p>“Er...” Ruby wanted to say <em>yes, absolutely, someone who will actually talk to me</em>! But catching Blake’s movement out of the corner of her eye, angling distrustfully toward a scowling Weiss, she restrained herself. Blake was still her partner. She deserved Ruby’s consideration.</p><p>So Ruby looked over at Blake and hoped her expression said, <em>What do you think?</em> instead of <em>Say yes or we’ll have to spend another hour alone here and I can’t take that</em>. Blake started, her cheeks tinging that faint pink again. After a long moment, she met Ruby’s eyes and nodded very faintly.</p><p>Ruby turned to Pyrrha, grinning. “Yes,” she said. Weiss grumbled something unintelligible. “Onward, team!”</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, someway, this was even worse than trudging along in silence with Blake. Ruby didn’t know how that was possible, but it was. Yang still wasn’t here. Blake looked like she was a second away from leaping into the undergrowth and leaving them all behind, and considering how Pyrrha and Weiss were arguing nonstop behind them, Ruby didn’t blame her.</p><p>“We didn’t have to bring them along!” Weiss hissed. “It’s <em>their </em>job to find the temple. It’s the assignment!”</p><p>“We’re classmates, Weiss. We’re supposed to help each other.”</p><p>“If they can’t find a location that Professor Ozpin gave them <em>explicit</em> directions to, they’re not worth helping!”</p><p>“Weiss...”</p><p>“And besides, they didn’t even need our help. They said they were fine! Let them prove it—even though we are clearly the superior partnership.”</p><p>“Weiss, do you really want to be my partner?”</p><p>“Of course I do! You’re the Mistrali champion, top of your class! You’re a legend! I want to be your partner, I just—don’t know why you’re doing this.”</p><p>“And <em>I </em>don’t know why you’re so against it.” Pyrrha’s lips pursed, the first sign of true displeasure Ruby had seen on her face. “And I’m a student here, not a legend.”</p><p>Uncomfortable eavesdropping any further, Ruby moved up toward the front, falling in line with Blake. “Any time you wanna get out of here, just say so.”</p><p>Amber eyes slid toward her, and Ruby was just about to play off the joke, possibly with blushing and flailing arms—and then the corner of Blake’s mouth lifted up in a smirk. Ruby blanked. Before she could process this triumph, Blake answered in an equally low voice, “Grapple, you said?”</p><p><em>Yeah, Blake was great</em>. Ruby grinned and nodded, and Blake swiftly wrapped an arm around her waist, slinging her blade into the treetops. One shot from Crescent Rose and they were flying high.</p><p>“Hey!” Weiss yelled from below, snapping out of her not-so-whispered tirade. “Where are you going?”</p><p>“The location Ozpin gave us explicit directions to,” Blake deadpanned at the same time Ruby stuck out her tongue and said, “<em>I CAN’T HEAR YOU</em>!”</p><p>Pyrrha chuckled and Weiss bumped her, huffing. At last, they seemed to call a ceasefire.</p><p>There was a whistling sound. Ruby hadn’t heard it below, over Weiss and Pyrrha’s whispering, but now...she looked up. It wasn’t wind or leaves, it was more like—</p><p>“Hey,” Blake said from over her shoulder, drawing Ruby’s attention. “I think I see the temple. We’re close.”</p><p>—<em>WHOOSH</em>. A gigantic, black-feathered wing swept the tops of the trees, and all four of them looked up. Ruby felt her heart freeze at the sight of a skeletal red eye staring back at them. “<em>Nevermore</em>,” she breathed.</p><p>Blake dropped them instantly, retracting her grapple and letting go of Ruby. Ruby had just enough time to get Crescent Rose under her, and they both landed behind Pyrrha and Weiss, who had already, very smartly, started running. “Head for the temple!” she called.</p><p>“That’s—what—we’re—doing, you dolt!” Weiss called back through gritted teeth. Ruby didn’t even have time to roll her eyes before they were barreling through the edge of the forest into the ruins of the temple.</p><p> </p><p>Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Yang, lounging casually on a broken pedestal and examining a knight piece. A long-haired boy with a pair of green bladed handguns stood at her side, apparently in deep conversation with what looked like a frenzy of orange and pink. Jaune might have been there too—Ruby couldn’t really make it out.</p><p>Because she was running. From a Nevermore.</p><p>“Hey, sis,” Yang said. “What’s the—<em>oh</em>, dang.”</p><p>Ruby squeaked, “Run!”</p><p>“Right,” Yang said, yanking the green bladed handguns boy away from his conversation. “Time to go, partner!”</p><p>“HEY!” came a roar from the orange-and-pink frenzy, who Ruby assumed was Jaune’s partner. “NOT AGAIN!” She and Jaune, who looked more terrified than usual, zoomed after the two in a blast of grenade smoke.</p><p>Above them, the Nevermore flapped its wings and cawed. A shockwave ripped through the forest like a deathblow. Trees cracked, the trunks splintering off and sending jagged wooden pieces sailing through the air. Others flew out of the ground entirely, hundred-year-old root systems erupting out of the dirt like flailing limbs. Ruby dodged them, flitting back and forth in the storm of soil and wood, while keeping one eye out for the others.</p><p>Jaune’s partner blasted a tree trunk away from the bladed handguns boy, laughing maniacally. Jaune himself was mostly trying not to get impaled, ducking behind his shield and smiling weakly at Pyrrha when her spear knocked away a particularly large rock. Pyrrha and Weiss were back-to-back; Weiss warded off debris in front of them with huge glow-y snowflake glyphs, while Pyrrha kept the rear guard safe. <em>At least they fight together as well as they fight each other</em>.</p><p>Yang, as always, was charging through. She punched flaming holes through larger tree trunks but let the smaller debris roll off her back. Ruby tried not to worry about Yang getting hurt, since she was probably saving up the blows to deal them back later with her semblance. <em>Be careful, Yang!</em></p><p>“Be careful!” Blake hissed in her ear as she yanked Ruby down. A heavy piece of root sailed over her head, and Ruby shot Blake a sheepish look.</p><p>“Not to alarm anyone,” Jaune’s high, reedy voice rose from the back, “but I think the Nevermore has company!”</p><p>Ruby looked back and cursed. He was right. A Deathstalker, its bony legs scuttling and its tail hanging fat with poison, had just burst out of a cave. The Nevermore cawed as if in delight at its evil backup.</p><p><em>I’m going to kill you</em>, Ruby thought, letting the old, hot anger rise in her chest for a second. Then she breathed, assessed the situation—two enemies, two teams, a rapidly destabilizing forest—and opened her eyes.</p><p>“<em>LISTEN!</em>”</p><p>To everyone’s credit, they turned to her immediately. “Yang, Jaune, you guys take the Deathstalker! Me, Blake, Pyrrha, and Weiss—we’re gonna go for the Nevermore!”</p><p>“No way!” Yang called back. “No way am I letting you take on a <em>Nevermore </em>without me!”</p><p>“I need you out of the forest!” They didn’t have time for this. Ruby let the anger well up a little higher, let it bleed out into her voice. Everyone always told her she sounded like Summer. “Your explosions will only cause more debris! Lure the Deathstalker out and kill it!”</p><p>Yang spent precious seconds glaring into Ruby’s eyes, lilac meeting hard steel, then turned brusquely to her partner. “Ren, Nora, Vomit Boy. Let’s kill this thing.”</p><p>The four of them ran toward the crumbling bridge, Deathstalker in tow.</p><p>Left alone in the wreckage of the forest, the Nevermore circling them, Weiss turned to Pyrrha. “What’s the plan?”</p><p>Ruby tried not to be disappointed. Of course Weiss would turn to Pyrrha. Pyrrha was older, more experienced in combat, a natural-born leader. She’d even come to save Ruby and Blake from that Ursa! Why would they trust Ruby, who was essentially a kid compared to them, who hadn’t proven herself, who couldn’t even get her landing strategy right?</p><p>Pyrrha glanced over at Ruby as if she could read her thoughts. “I’d like to hear Ruby’s plan.”</p><p>“What?” Ruby blinked.</p><p>Weiss huffed—was that just going to be her default response?—and opened her mouth to argue, but another shockwave from the Nevermore made her stop and shake her head. “Well, if you’ve got one, out with it.”</p><p>Blake nodded silently, and faced with (mostly) supportive faces, Ruby collected her thoughts. “Okay. Here’s the plan.”</p><p> </p><p>“NOW!”</p><p>A flurry of shots from Weiss and Blake—the Nevermore adjusted sideways, seeming faintly amused—almost there—and <em>yes, now, go</em>!</p><p>“Pyrrha, with me!”</p><p>From the tops of two barely standing trees, Pyrrha and Ruby launched themselves at either side of the Nevermore. Ruby saw Pyrrha’s spear sink deep into the bone of the right wing, while the crunch under Crescent Rose confirmed she’d gotten the left. As did the croaking wail of pain.</p><p>She felt the surprisingly soft ribbon wrap around her foot, yanking both of them down toward where Blake was anchored by Weiss’ large black gravity glyph. Pyrrha had already landed, gracefully rolling to her feet at Weiss’s other side. A cloud of metallic Aura covered her hands as she <em>pulled</em>—her metal spear, and the wing it was buried in, moved inexorably toward her.</p><p>“Switch!”</p><p>Weiss let up the gravity glyph; Blake released Ruby and phased away in a series of blurry clones. “Do you have enough?” Pyrrha called over to Weiss.</p><p>“I’m <em>fine</em>!” Weiss snapped. Another glyph bloomed under the huge, jagged trunk of a tree, levitating it until the splintered edges pointed up like a row of old teeth—</p><p>—right in time for the Nevermore to crash down on top of it, impaling it through the stomach, its tattered wings falling around it like a shroud on the ruined woods.</p><p>“It’s still alive,” Weiss said, her voice hoarse. Pyrrha helped her up.</p><p>“I know,” Ruby said simply. “Blake.”</p><p>Blake shot her blade toward the Nevermore’s straining head, the ribbon wrapping around the beak and forcing it shut. Ruby walked over to where Crescent Rose was still buried in the wing—and now in several inches of dirt—freeing it with a shot. “Pyrrha, do you want to do the honors?”</p><p>Pyrrha glanced uncertainly at Weiss, who looked expectant, then smiled and gestured toward Ruby. Ruby nodded, feeling the weight of her red cloak and its history settle over her shoulders as she approached the fallen Nevermore.</p><p><em>Discharge the spent shell. Reload. Position.</em> Ruby stared into the defiant eye, let the anger lance all the way through her. She felt Weiss, Pyrrha, and Blake at her back—waiting, ready—and if there was a twinge of sorrow deep in the marrow of her bones? A passing thought: <em>if Mom’s team had been there, too...</em>well, that just turned the anger sharper. “I don’t know if you were the one who did it. But this is for my mom. Summer Rose.”</p><p><em>Shoot</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Ruby could feel Professor Ozpin’s eyes sweeping over her, and she tried not to bounce on her feet. Not only because that would remind everyone how young she was—<em>not that young</em>, her mind protested, but young enough to be looked at harder than anyone else—but because Blake on the podium next to her was still shifting like she was going to bolt.</p><p>“I hope you find your partners adequate. You will be with them for the next four years. If not...well, it <em>is</em> only four years. All Hunters and Huntresses must eventually prove their own. So, at the end of your studies at Beacon, the teams will be split. Final exams will be taken separately, and you will emerge a true Hunter or Huntress, ready to take on assignments with your individual power and skill. Still, do not take these teams lightly. There is much to learn from your peers.”</p><p>Professor Ozpin was saying something else about their great courage and skill and—was that something about colors?—but Ruby was too keyed up from the fight to listen. She tried to look around discreetly, which from Blake’s amused look and Weiss’s shriveling one meant that she was probably whipping her head back and forth like Zwei following a milk bone.</p><p>Yang, Ren, Nora, and Jaune had finished off the Deathstalker. From the slightly charred look of their...everything, this had probably involved Yang unleashing her semblance in a pillar of fire and fury. Ruby hoped she hadn’t scared anyone too badly. (She clocked Nora’s considering gaze toward Yang and amended this: she hoped Yang hadn’t scared Jaune too badly, and also hadn’t given Nora any ideas.)</p><p>Weiss was trying her best to maintain her composure, but kept scowling at Ruby and Blake every few seconds—presumably because Ruby was watching everyone and Blake was squinting strangely at one of the other teams. Pyrrha was actually maintaining her composure, a winning smile pasted on her face. When Ruby caught her eye, though, her smile softened, and she broke to give a tiny wave.</p><p>There were other teams, too: a group of boys led by a smirking, armored guy with bad hair and a mace-axe, a lanky team with crossbows that shot arrow-guns. Ruby followed Blake’s gaze to the last podium. A slouching boy with gauntlets like Yang’s flipped a switchblade; a ponytailed girl with a whip-sword kept her gaze fixed on the holo-screens with steely determination. Another girl with a pair of hooked blades Ruby wanted to get a better look at scanned the audience, and...</p><p>The leader of the group met Ruby’s eyes and smiled, adjusting her dual swords. They pulsed with some kind of warm, orange Aura. After a moment, the woman looked away and pulled up her own hood.</p><p><em>Something familiar</em>, Ruby thought with relief.</p><p>“Ruby!” Weiss hissed. “Pay attention!”</p><p>Ruby tore her gaze away and refocused on Professor Ozpin...who was right in front of her, smiling mildly. “Ruby Rose,” he said, in the same unreadable tone he’d had three nights ago.</p><p>Ruby squeaked.</p><p>Ozpin broke his gaze and started his ambling pace again, gesturing with his cane toward the holo-screens. “Blake Belladonna. Pyrrha Nikos. Weiss Schnee. You retrieved the white knight pieces. You will form Team RBWP...led by Ruby Rose.”</p><p>Weiss hissed. Yang suppressed a squeal of delight. Pyrrha smiled, and Blake hummed neutrally. As Ozpin’s words washed over her, Ruby felt the weight fall onto her shoulders again—the cape, the mantle of leader, both passed down to her—along with the anger, old and sickening, rolling in her gut. <em>Not now. Now I enjoy this</em>.</p><p>“Jaune Arc. Nora Valkyrie. Lie Ren. Yang Xiao Long. You retrieved the white rook pieces. You will form Team JNRY...led by Jaune Arc.”</p><p><em>Jaune? Well, good for him</em>, Ruby thought bemusedly as the man of the hour fainted. Ren caught him, Yang pounded Ren’s back heartily, and Nora, throwing a half-joking, half-serious glare toward Yang, slung an arm around Ren and monkeyed up to sit on his shoulders. When Jaune blinked back into consciousness, Pyrrha grinned at him—a full, starry, million-dollar smile.</p><p>“Finally...” Ozpin drew out the pause, surveying the last team with the same grave expression. “Cinder Fall. Ilia Amitola. Mercury Black. Emerald Sustrai. You retrieved the black queen pieces. From this day forward, you will form Team CIME...led by Cinder Fall.”</p><p>Cinder smiled up at him from under her hood. Ozpin stepped back and spread his hands.</p><p>“Welcome to Beacon Academy.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Welcome to my entirely self-indulgent work of...something. I feel I should clarify: this work sprung out of a totally out-of-the-blue desire to rewrite RWBY from the ground up, taking some of the interesting concepts and arcs of the early seasons and fleshing them out. Even though the show itself decided to upscale into large fantasy battles and gods and Avatar cycles, I think there was a lot to explore in the early character dynamics and conflicts that they just kind of glossed over. As a writer with too many projects, of course I've decided to take on this daunting project of creating a four-volume alternate universe "what if they were put into different teams" series.</p><p>(Yes, you read that right. Four volumes. We'll get there.)</p><p>To wit, a few housekeeping notes:</p><p>  - I'm going to post the chapters as soon as I've got something I'm initially happy with, but at the end of each volume I will go back and do a full-scale edit for consistency. I'm the kind of writer for whom some things don't come up until halfway through the process, and that's just how it is.<br/>- It's also my first time posting on AO3, so I'm getting used to tags. Please bear with me.<br/>- This chapter sticks (kind of) close to canon, but it's going to diverge pretty heavily eventually. This won't be "the plot of RWBY but with Pyrrha on the team instead," both because that's not what I'm interested in and because I haven't actually watched past S6 of canon.<br/>- I'm very aware that the names should be colors. I've tried to preserve, like, the sense of a word in a team name, but some of them are just unintelligible letters. Sorry.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. FIRST NIGHTS, FIRST FIGHTS</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>First days of Beacon. Weiss has a lot to prove (and a lot of assumptions). The course of teamwork, especially with idiot leaders, explosive arm wrestlers, elusive partners, and four strange, irritating newcomers, never did run smooth.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Never let it be said that Weiss Schnee was a quitter. She had poured her blood, sweat, copious amounts of Dust, and not a small amount of pride into coming to Beacon, and she wasn’t going to give it up now. Not for Professor Ozpin, not for Pyrrha Nikos, and certainly not for the cringing <em>imbecile</em> who had been declared her leader.</p><p>(As a joke, clearly.)</p><p>They had been dismissed from the auditorium right after, and in the flood of students, Weiss hadn’t been able to confront Professor Ozpin. Now they were standing alone in their dorm room. Pyrrha was glancing awkwardly at Ruby’s hood (honestly, she didn’t even have the decency to look at them!) and Blake had curled up on the bed next to the window, reading a book. Everything was dead silent.</p><p><em>Straighten your spine</em>, Weiss reminded herself. The voice in her head sounded like Winter’s, and Weiss tried to mirror the image of her sister: stern, intelligent, implacable. <em>Lower your voice. Make them respect you</em>.</p><p>A glint of metal—the blood in her eye—Father’s measuring gaze. <em>Don’t fail, Weiss.</em></p><p>“Well, clearly there’s been a mistake,” Weiss said into the silence. It came out steady and proud, exactly as she’d planned, and Weiss imagined Winter smiling proudly at her. (Try as she might, she couldn’t quite get Father’s image to do the same.)</p><p>Ruby shrank further into her hood. Pyrrha looked at Weiss questioningly. “What do you mean, a mistake?”</p><p>Weiss restrained herself from rolling her eyes. <em>Why is Pyrrha Nikos playing dumb like this</em>? She’d thought her performance at Initiation had been adequate enough to make Pyrrha trust her, but apparently not; she was still too soft, too sickly sweet, too condescending. “I <em>mean</em>, I’m sorry, but—Ruby, is it?—is not qualified to be our leader.”</p><p>“None of us is qualified,” Blake said in an infuriatingly bored tone, not looking up from her book. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”</p><p>“I’m sure Ruby will do a fantastic job!” Pyrrha said, mostly to Ruby, who was <em>still</em> buried under her hood.</p><p>“And what evidence do you have of that?”</p><p>“She did come up with the plan to defeat the Nevermore,” said Blake. Ruby shifted under her hood to smile at her partner. “Besides,” Blake’s eyes narrowed. She clutched her rough-hewn necklace so tightly Weiss was sure the cheap cord would break. “What evidence do we have that you’d do a better job?”</p><p>“Plenty,” Weiss snapped.</p><p>“Are you sure about that?” There was an edge to Blake’s monotone voice now, and there was no good reason for it; Weiss was only speaking the truth. “You didn’t just take an SDC private jet to Beacon?”</p><p>And that stung.</p><p>“Alright...” Pyrrha said like a disappointed mother.</p><p>Did they even see what was in front of them? Never mind that Weiss had taken a company jet—she’d gotten through initiation just like the rest of them. If being a Schnee had given her certain advantages, she’d honed them with effort and practice. Meanwhile, their <em>fantastic </em>leader couldn’t even look at them! Could <em>Ruby Rose</em> give succinct orders in a fight? Did <em>she</em> have an extensive repertoire of knowledge in Atlesian and Valean military history? Had <em>she</em> drilled forms until the click of a dust chamber was as intimate a sound as her own heartbeat, had <em>she</em> practiced her Semblance until the bones in her hand creaked and her vision filled with white? What, <em>what</em> had Rose done to prove herself compared to Weiss Schnee?</p><p>All these words packed into Weiss’ chest and throat like layers of hard ice, but she swallowed them down. These people wouldn’t listen to reason, fine; all Weiss had to do was prove she was better. Which wouldn’t be hard, because she <em>was.</em> She had to be.</p><p>Besides, this team would only last four years. If she ignored Ruby and this Blake character, learned all she could, and made it out of Beacon’s final exams, she’d be on her own. Free. <em>That</em> was what she wanted.</p><p>“Fine,” Weiss bit out through gritted teeth. “<em>Ruby </em>can be the leader, for whatever that’s worth. I’m here to become a Huntress, and if being on this team is how I do that, I’ll do it.”</p><p>“But,” Weiss continued, “I’m <em>not</em> going to follow you three around all the time. We are a team in name only. I have my own things to do, and I’d <em>prefer it</em> if you stayed out of my way.” Weiss twisted the words like she’d heard Atlesian diplomats do at Father’s parties; one said “a favor” and meant “blackmail,” said “a shame” and meant “an acceptable loss.” Said “prefer” and meant “order.”</p><p>(Her teammates caught her meaning perfectly, and Weiss wasn’t sure how to feel about that.)</p><p>Ruby looked up—finally, it only took ten minutes—and Weiss felt an ugly stab of pride at the genuine sorrow in her face. <em>What, did you think we’d be best friends?</em></p><p>Blake and Pyrrha, slightly more sensible, nodded. “I can do that,” Blake said. “Honestly, I have my own priorities, too.” She glanced at Ruby, who was looking more and more betrayed. “No offense.”</p><p>“And while I’d like us all to get along,” Pyrrha added, “I must admit I...I’ve gotten used to working alone.” She frowned at that, as if being alone were a burden rather than the glorious, glorious weightlessness that Weiss had always sought. Weiss squinted at her, then shook her head.</p><p>“It’s settled then,” she said, glaring meaningfully at Ruby.</p><p>Ruby made an embarrassing, high-pitched <em>eep!</em> Weiss didn’t bother restraining the eye roll this time. The girl tilted her head like a puppy, worried her lip, and then, after a long pause in which Weiss could practically hear the gears overheating in her dense brain, said, “I want to be a team. A <em>real </em>team. But I—I’ll try to be a good leader anyway. Until you’re ready?”</p><p><em>Not likely</em>, Weiss thought, but inclined her head sharply.</p><p>“So...” Ruby said, glancing at the door in a way she probably thought was stealthy but was decidedly not, “...does this mean we can sleep wherever we want? Like, not as a team.”</p><p>Weiss realized suddenly that she would spend most of her interactions with this girl trying not to throttle her. “Well, you’re the leader, aren’t you? You make the decisions.”</p><p>Ruby perked up instantly. Stars seemed to overflow from her eyes. “Right, team RBWP! I hereby declare that we can sleep anywhere we want...um, with permission!”</p><p>“Isn’t that a contradiction?” Pyrrha mused.</p><p>“Whatever, just—BREAK!” Ruby shouted as if they were back in the forest, stamping her foot and vibrating with caffeinated fifteen-year-old energy. “Do whatever you want! I’m gonna go find Yang!” She zipped through the doorway without so much as a courteous nod, blowing petals in their faces. Weiss pulled out Myternaster and speared one, just on principle.</p><p>If she was imagining Ruby’s dumb face, her complete lack of understanding toward the responsibility handed to her...well, no one would know.</p><p>“Weiss?” Pyrrha said. “I’m going to unpack.”</p><p>Weiss blinked, back in the present again. Pyrrha had that unwarranted look of concern on her face, as if Weiss would break if she spoke wrong. Weiss wanted to snap at her, <em>I’m your partner! Stop treating me like a child</em>! but she felt the exhaustion seeping in. It wasn’t worth it to start another argument. Blake had...vanished, apparently, book and all. Was she going to find a more peaceful place to read?</p><p>If she found one, Weiss secretly hoped she’d share it, despite their animosity. A peaceful place was difficult to find.</p><p>“I’ll be in the practice rooms,” Weiss said.</p><p> </p><p><em>Click—fire dust. Shoot. </em>BOOM. <em>Dodge, parry, lunge. Heart, throat, eye. </em>A dummy collapsed, straw leaking from its fatal wounds. <em>Click—ice dust. On the left, freeze him. </em>Ice coated the tracks of the conveyer belt as well as the oncoming enemy. Sloppy. <em>Shield glyph, right</em>. The last faceless mannequin was blown back, and the lines of beaten enemies retracted into the wall.</p><p>Weiss brushed the sweat off her forehead. Repositioned. <em>En garde.</em></p><p>“Um, Weiss?”</p><p>Weiss whipped around, an ice chamber snapping into place. Ruby waved sheepishly from the doorway. Of course the dolt wouldn’t care that Weiss had nearly frozen her. “It’s past curfew.”</p><p>As much as Weiss wanted to challenge her right here, right now, school rules were still school rules. She sheathed Myternaster and grudgingly fell in line with Ruby, who skipped—literally skipped, the cape of her hood bouncing like a frivolous ornament—down the hall.</p><p>“I thought you were going to stay with Yang,” said Weiss. She didn’t quite remember who Yang was—judging from Ruby’s own personality, it was either that smiling, oafish girl with explosive gauntlets or the maniacal redhead with the grenade hammer. Whichever one it was, it meant that Ruby would be far away for the night.</p><p>But Ruby frowned. “Yang said I should be with you guys. You know, make friends.”</p><p>“I see,” Weiss said. “Did you tell her about our agreement?”</p><p>Ruby looked up at her with too-large, impossibly forlorn eyes. “I <em>tried!</em> She didn’t believe me! And <em>then</em> she said that even if <em>I</em> didn’t want to make friends, she wanted to make friends with her own team because Ren is ‘pretty cool’, and Nora is ‘a beast’ and we should have our own things!”</p><p>Weiss considered this. Loathe as she was to admit any similarity to someone related to Ruby, she understood the need for independence. And she understood sisters. (<em>Was that why you went to the military, Winter? Did you need something as crass as “your own thing”?</em></p><p>In her mind, Winter regarded her with cool blue eyes and shook her head. <em>You know what I needed, sister.</em>)</p><p>“Maybe you do,” Weiss murmured softly, “need your own space, I mean. Your own abilities.”</p><p>Ruby looked up, surprised. Weiss scowled. She blamed this whole conversation on her exhaustion.</p><p>But instead of shrinking away, or blurting something out at an ungodly volume, or committing some other faux-pas, Ruby hummed thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right, kinda.”</p><p>Weiss jolted. Which was ridiculous—it wasn’t a shock, of course she was right, she just...hadn’t expected Ruby to admit it. “Of course I’m right!”</p><p>“No, I mean,” Ruby giggled, entirely too amused at Weiss’ righteous indignation, “I do sometimes want space from Yang. Or...maybe not space, but a chance to show her I’m not a kid anymore. She doesn’t need to protect me all the time. And I want to show everyone else, too.”</p><p>Something in Weiss ached. Maybe she’d overworked her fencing arm.</p><p>“I...do want to be a good leader, Weiss,” Ruby said earnestly. “I want to be a Huntress. I want to learn. When people look at me...I know I’m young, and—and awkward. And I don’t know half the things you do. But give me a chance, and I’ll try.”</p><p>Ruby met her eyes then, and Weiss felt unaccountably struck—but not like a sword, or the flat of a palm. It was like suddenly looking up and finding yourself in front of a mirror. A strange mixture of fear, pain, and inexplicable joy shot through her.</p><p>This was definitely exhaustion. Weiss looked away.</p><p>“Trying’s not enough.”</p><p> </p><p>The night was...awkward, to say the least.</p><p>Ruby curled up in a ball, shooting Weiss one last set of wounded puppy dog eyes before immediately passing out and snoring. Weiss didn’t even have time to be annoyed by this, because minutes later, she was whimpering unintelligibly and clutching her pillow.</p><p>Pyrrha was as neat and quiet as ever, but the weight of her presence—her Aura, her power, her reputation—radiated outward like lead. <em>Will I ever be a good enough partner for Pyrrha Nikos? </em></p><p>Sometime after midnight, Blake slipped back into the room. She was almost inhumanly quiet, more shadow than girl, but Weiss still sat up. She was practiced at hearing shadows in silence.</p><p>Blake blinked at her in the darkness, unfathomable.</p><p>It was probably good strategy to get some rest, but despite her best efforts, Weiss lay awake, watching the sliver of shattered moonlight come in through the crack in the blinds. <em>Dodge, parry, lunge. Straighten your spine. Don’t fail. </em></p><p>
  <em>The whole of Remnant, spread out before her, open enough to breathe.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>For one reason or another, they were all awake at dawn. Weiss suspected this was irregular for Ruby—she was vacillating between excited, queasy, and half-asleep—but for Blake and Pyrrha, it seemed routine. Pyrrha began cleaning and oiling her weapons with methodical precision. Blake cast them all one of her patented unreadable looks and phased out of the room. Weiss couldn’t decide if she was offended by the girl’s aloofness or appreciative of the blunt honesty.</p><p>Pyrrha turned to her (her weapon having been commandeered by Ruby, who was cooing over the elegant magazine design) and said, “I thought I’d go down to breakfast with Blake and Ruby today.” A pause, then, “Maybe I’ll...see you there?”</p><p>Weiss sighed. It was a rhetorical question—they both knew Pyrrha wouldn’t expect her there—and Weiss tried not to take it personally. She <em>had</em> said, although in not so many words, that she wanted as little to do with them as possible.</p><p>Still, part of Weiss wished Pyrrha had just said what she meant. “Suit yourself,” she murmured.</p><p> </p><p>Weiss went with them to breakfast.</p><p>She rationalized it, of course: no matter how they were operating behind closed doors, Team RBWP needed to present a united front. Her partner was uncertain of her, and damaging their working relationship this early was not good strategy. The breakfast rush was loud and annoying, but going at the height of it meant she could survey more teams, cataloging their strengths and weaknesses for sparring. It was, in the end, an advantageous tactical choice.</p><p>That didn’t make Weiss any happier to be wedged in between Pyrrha’s armor and Ruby’s blasted cape as Yang and Nora’s arm-wrestling competition sent fractures running through the table.</p><p>“One! Two! Three!” Jaune chanted. <em>Utterly useless, these leaders</em>.</p><p>“And...<em>down!</em>” Yang crowed, pinning Nora’s arm. It left a long crater in the wood. “Nailed it! Valkyrie, you owe me a grape.” She opened her mouth wide and said something like, “Ut er ‘ere!”</p><p>Weiss shuddered. Nora obediently plucked a grape off one of her three heaping piles of food and tossed it into Yang’s mouth.</p><p>“Next time,” Nora muttered. Ren patted her shoulder.</p><p>“So!” Yang swallowed the grape whole, put on a cheesy smile, and turned to Blake. “You’re my sister’s partner, are you?”</p><p>Blake, who had been valiantly attempting to read <em>A History of Vale: From Shadows to Liberation</em>, sighed. “Yes?”</p><p>“Look, I just want to make sure you’ll treat her right—”</p><p>“<em>Yaaang</em>, stop it, I’m fine!”</p><p>“—because she’s my baby sister, and I don’t trust just anyone with my baby sister—<em>uurk!</em>”</p><p>Ruby lunged over the table to slap a hand over her sister’s mouth. A few rose petals drifted into Ren and Nora’s eggs; Ren calmly picked them off, while Nora, inhaling the food at an alarming rate, didn’t seem to notice. “That’s enough, Yang! This is my team, and—and they’re great! You have your own, so stop embarrassing me.”</p><p>Weiss stared at them, wide-eyed. Part of her tried to imagine Winter in this situation, with these effortless touches and smiles, with the total ignorance of tact and decorum. It didn’t fit quite right, and it made her head hurt. (Would she have preferred this kind of love, soft like sunshine and easy as butter? How would she know if she couldn’t even imagine it?)</p><p>Yang batted Ruby’s hands off. “Alright, alright, I give! Your team is great. What did I tell ya?”</p><p>Ruby settled back down but didn’t take her eyes off Yang as she finished the rest of her pancakes. “If I go get seconds, do you promise not to talk about me?” she said. She stared Yang down. Weiss hoped dearly this would not lead to another arm-wrestling competition.</p><p>“Fine,” Yang said, smooth as ice. “You got it.”</p><p>Still eying her suspiciously, Ruby took off for the buffet.</p><p>An instant later, Yang rounded on Blake. “Alright, tell me the truth, Belladonna.” She knocked her fists together, making Blake jump in her seat, eyes guarded and skittish. But Yang wasn’t serious; Weiss could almost feel the bravado rolling off her. It was enough to make her groan. <em>These idiots. These heathens.</em></p><p>“Um...but didn’t you promise Ruby?” Jaune piped up nervously. “Y’know, that you wouldn’t say anything.”</p><p>“I agree,” said Pyrrha, who was still, for some reason Weiss couldn’t work out, determined to prop up <em>Jaune Arc.</em></p><p>“I never promised. I said ‘you got it.’ Blake, come on.”</p><p>Blake gazed back at her evenly. No inch. After a moment, Yang’s fists and her cocky smirk fell into something more tired—a worn, worried expression that Weiss had seen a thousand times on Winter’s face. <em>I guess some things don’t change</em>. “Look,” Yang said, so quiet that Weiss only caught the edge of it, “I’ve been taking care of Ruby her whole life. This is the first time that...I haven’t been there. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”</p><p>“She’s spirited,” said Blake slowly, mouth tilting up in wry amusement. “I’ll...try my best to be a good partner. Though I don’t know if I’m really cut out for it.”</p><p>“Thanks,” said Yang. Then, even lower: “Is she having nightmares again?”</p><p>Weiss remembered the conversation in the hallway the night before, much as she wanted to pretend it never happened. She remembered Ruby’s eyes, love mixed with fond exasperation and a steeliness she thought Yang might have missed. She remembered <em>space</em> and <em>overprotective</em> and a pleading <em>she doesn’t have to protect me all the time.</em></p><p>Against her better judgment, Weiss spoke. “If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you herself.”</p><p>Yang started. “Who asked you?”</p><p>Weiss scoffed and returned to eating her bitter melon. No one had asked her, of course—she didn’t know why she continued to answer as if someone would listen. It was a bad habit.</p><p> </p><p>Ruby came back with another team in tow: the rude boy Weiss had seen playing with a switchblade through Professor Ozpin’s speech, a ponytailed girl who looked as thrilled to be here as Weiss felt, a green-haired girl whose tray of food rivaled Nora’s, and the leader—a woman with long black hair and warm eyes, whose presence was like a heat wave. So far, she was the only one of the three leaders Weiss had met who actually looked the part.</p><p>“Guys!” Ruby shrieked (proving Weiss’ point exactly), “Look who I found! This is Team CIME—Cinder, Ilia, Mercury, and Emerald.” She pointed to each of them in turn, and here was a chorus of <em>hellos</em> ranging from Blake’s barely audible to Nora’s bellow.</p><p>Mercury slid onto the bench, catching Weiss’ eye with a lazy, knife-thin smirk. “Nice to meet you, princess.”</p><p>“Don’t call me that.”</p><p>“Sorry,” he said, raising his hands in mocking surrender. “My mistake.”</p><p>“For your information, I am an <em>heiress</em>.” Weiss couldn’t help herself—she needed to shake that smug, irreverent look off his face. But Mercury just slouched lower on the bench and continued to hold her gaze.</p><p>“Believe me, we know,” Ilia muttered beside him. Weiss bristled. Behind her book, so did Blake; Weiss tried not to feel touched.</p><p>“Ilia, be nice.” Finally, Cinder spoke, casting Weiss a warm, apologetic smile. Her voice was low and pleasant, and she laid a warning hand on Mercury’s shoulder, too. “Mercury, leave it.”</p><p>“I’m just making a new friend, boss. Know your enemy and all that.”</p><p>“<em>Mercury,</em>” Emerald groaned. Mercury smiled innocently.</p><p>“What? We’re going to fight her in class anyway. Figured I might as well know who I’m up against.”</p><p>“Has it occurred to you,” Weiss cut in, using her most acidic tone of voice, “that while you’re learning about me, I’m also learning about you?”</p><p>Pyrrha shifted beside her, pressing her metal armor into Weiss’ leg as if to say, <em>be polite</em>. (Or maybe—thinking wishfully—<em>I support you</em>.) Weiss turned just a little and saw Pyrrha engrossed in her <em>riveting</em> conversation with Jaune about Pumpkin Pete’s cereal, and that hope withered instantly. Honestly.</p><p>She turned back to Mercury. Far from being offended, he was grinning genuinely now. His eyes glinted the way her fencing master’s had when she’d made a particularly sharp parry. <em>Delighted to dance with you, my dear</em>! “Yeah, of course. Team Cinder doesn’t mind a bit of friendly competition.” He gestured to his team: Cinder smiled indulgently, Ilia stabbed another piece of egg, and Emerald flipped him off.</p><p>“What do you mean, Team Cinder?” Weiss said, deciding to ignore all of this. “You’re Team CIME.”</p><p>“We’re not actually called Team Cinder,” Ilia said with an eye roll, as if she’d had to clarify this multiple times. Emerald shot her a look Weiss couldn’t make out.</p><p>“Team names are dumb anyway,” Emerald declared. She stuffed a whole hash brown in her mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed. “If you’re gonna stick with people, it’s not gonna be because of a name.”</p><p>Weiss stared at her. Cinder, rapidly becoming the only intelligent one in Weiss’ estimation, smiled again. “What Emerald means is, we aren’t the most traditional team. Whatever Ozpin says, I’m not going to force them to follow my lead.”</p><p>“We pretty much do our own thing,” supplied Mercury. “What we want, when we want, who cares. Sometimes I let these guys tag along.”</p><p>“Cinder, please hit him.”</p><p>“Aw, come on, Em!”</p><p>“Really?” Ruby cut in, sounding hurt. Apparently she’d finished talking to Ren about his bladed handguns. “What if you need backup? Or...someone to talk to?”</p><p>Mercury leaned back and flashed a grin at Emerald from behind Cinder. “What do you think, Em? You need <em>backup?</em>You need someone to talk to?”</p><p>“God, no. Bug off.”</p><p>Ruby wasn’t amused. “You don’t talk to each other, or—or help each other? At all?”</p><p>“It does seem a...troubled course of action,” Pyrrha said, frowning. “We have much to learn from each other. We’re not Hunters yet; we shouldn’t take on everything alone.”</p><p>Weiss looked down at her fruit bowl, biting back the sharp-edged words—<em>isn’t that what we’re doing, too? Not getting in each other’s way? And Pyrrha’s one to talk about not taking on everything alone, when she hasn’t even had a real conversation with me, her </em>partner<em>.</em></p><p>“What lies between a Huntress and a Huntress-in-training, though?” Cinder was saying. “Four years. Then you have to stand on your own. I suppose we’re just getting a head-start.”</p><p>“Besides,” said Ilia acrimoniously, “you can always trust yourself. But other people? They might let you down.”</p><p>Ruby looked like she might burst into tears. Blake winced and brought her book up higher.</p><p>Yang, ever dependable, whistled long and low. “Man, that’s cheery. D’ya want a grape?”</p><p> </p><p>Classes began in earnest as Beacon felt the first bite of fall. For Weiss it could not have come sooner; almost everyone else dragged themselves from their dorm rooms like zombies for the first week. Eventually, though, even the most stubborn (Ruby, Yang, and Nora) got the routine through their heads, and life at Beacon fell into a comfortable clockwork.</p><p>Weiss had given up eating alone; if you went to breakfast too early, the food was cold and the servers dragged their feet. Besides, last time she tried, Ruby’s look of utter betrayal lasted three days. Pyrrha and Blake always ate with them, and usually Team JNRY too, although Weiss privately adored the days Yang and Nora slept in. On those days, the table usually stayed intact.</p><p>Members of Team Cinder—despite Ilia’s best efforts, the name stuck—popped in and out at random. There was usually at least one of them at breakfast, but never all of them at once. And no one from the team offered a good explanation.</p><p>(“Oh, yeah, Emerald died!” Mercury said brightly, making Ruby choke on her juice. “She’s busy crawling her way back up from the pits of darkness.”)</p><p>Oh, yes, Team Cinder seemed to be in competition for who could besmirch Hunter traditions more. Mercury had three different insults for each professor every morning, and if given the chance, Cinder would make eloquent speeches about “the institution” while Emerald ate like a dog Faunus next to her. But Weiss appreciated them by default, since none of them ever <em>broke the table</em>.</p><p>The classes themselves, comparatively, were tame. There was Grimm Anatomy and Behavior with Professor Port, which mostly consisted of Professor Port droning on about his adventures and occasionally waxing poetic about someone named Aisha. Ostensibly they learned about anatomy and behavior somewhere along the way, but when Weiss caught Ruby doodling a Beowolf, she’d just hissed, “The spines should be bigger.” Ruby hadn’t stopped grinning for a week.</p><p>In Valean Military Tactics, they learned team strategy for hunting in the crowded streets of Vale, as well as how to coordinate with local governments, lead evacuations, and handle contingencies. Emerald and Mercury always skipped. Jaune proved surprisingly adept at it.</p><p>“Well, yeah,” he’d said one day after class. He’d stayed behind to study the authentic battle maps Professor Oobleck had hung on the whiteboard, barely restraining himself from touching them. “I mean, Remnant history, famous Hunter battles, anywhere you look the Arcs were there. Those were my bedtime stories.”</p><p>Weiss had huffed, forced to admit there was more to Jaune Arc than tripping over his own shield. Although he still did that—constantly.</p><p>There was Dust Mechanics and Practical Uses with Professor MacIntyre, a short, stubborn woman who didn’t seem to grasp that a lifetime in the Schnee Dust Company had taught Weiss everything she needed to know about Dust already. Weapons Care with Professor Krall; it didn’t go as horribly as Weiss had imagined, although Professor Goodwitch did have to fix the smoking remains of the roof every other week. Which was only to be expected, really. Yang, Ruby, and Nora in a room together? With explosives? Weiss was surprised Beacon was still standing.</p><p>There were a handful of other classes, too—Etiquette and Decorum Across Cultures, which taught everything from Mistrali ballroom dancing to the Vacuoan spit-handshake; and Field Health, at which Team Cinder was hilariously lopsided. They excelled in field medicine, but their rations always came out borderline lethal.</p><p>Weiss’ least favorite class was Hunter Ethics and Philosophy. Unnecessary, confusing questions about the nature of reality had never been her strong suit, and the professor, a soft-voiced but firm crocodile Faunus, held radical views that Weiss couldn’t abide by. (<em>We should’ve never let them teach! </em>her father’s words echoed over an empty dinner table. <em>Dragging their politics into everything!</em>) Worse, everyone else seemed to love it. Blake—cool, unaffected, aloof Blake!—stared at the professor as if she had personally hung every shard of Remnant’s moon.</p><p>But that didn’t matter, did it? Weiss and Pyrrha were still top of their class. That was what was important (that was what would free her). She had expected more of Blake, who ranked twelfth, but Jaune took third and Cinder a respectable fifth. If Father ever called, Weiss could reasonably say that not all of her associations were absolute cretins.</p><p>(He never did, of course.)</p><p>Still, as the first month of term slipped by, something was...missing. Off, in a subtle, undefinable way. Weiss still spent her due time in the practice rooms, still labored over her work and remembered the duties of her name. But she’d thought—well, she’d thought it would feel like...more than this.</p><p>Weiss approached things logically. She considered every angle: was it that Ozpin had not made her leader already? No—it still rankled, but there was barely a Team RBWP to lead. (And underneath it all, Weiss might have felt relief; she’d seen how the pressures of leadership had twisted her father...but no. She pushed the thought down. What had that been? Her father was a perfectly responsible, if very stressed, man.)</p><p>Then was it that she was forced to share a room with three other people? Certainly, it was an inconvenience. Ruby still had nightmares, and she left her toolboxes and weapons catalogs strewn about the floor. If Weiss wasn’t careful, she’d stub all her toes on forgotten washers. There was generally no sign of Blake in the main room, but Pyrrha was always picking her long black hair out of the shower drain. And as for Weiss’ illustrious partner herself...she was nowhere. Nowhere! Weiss barely saw her outside of breakfast and class. She’d been so excited to have Pyrrha Nikos beside her, someone who was a worthy match, someone Weiss could learn from—and it was like she had disappeared!</p><p>That was it, Weiss decided. That was the missing piece. She would have to deal with Pyrrha Nikos.</p><p> </p><p>This was, apparently, easier said than done. For someone so popular and well-liked—and also for someone who presumably shared her living quarters—Pyrrha was remarkably hard to find. Weiss felt a little bad cornering her outside of the girls’ locker room. She brushed it off. No time to think about that; she had prepared all night for this conversation.</p><p>“Miss Nikos,” she began confidently. One always showed respect and deference when making a request like this. “I propose that we strengthen our partnership.”</p><p>“Ah...” said Pyrrha, unconvinced. But that was all right—it was just the first sell. Once Weiss explained how mutually beneficial it was...</p><p>“We are already academically solid, but strengthening our combat compatibility before the start of Sparring and Weapons Training will make us even more formidable. We could top the physical rankings with ease. Additionally, as the Mistrali tournament champion, I believe you could teach me a lot—but I’ve also had intensive combat training before Beacon, and I am dedicated. I can be a competent opponent for you in a way none of these people can. So—”</p><p>“—Weiss, stop,” Pyrrha said, raising her hand. She closed her eyes, and Weiss waited nervously, feeling as if she had Winter’s summoned butterflies fluttering in her gut. Had it been enough?</p><p>Pyrrha’s eyes opened again, green and piercing, and Weiss felt the butterflies turn to sludge. No, it hadn’t been enough (she never was). “I’m sorry,” Pyrrha said delicately.</p><p>She sounded honest, but there was an edge of discomfort underneath; Weiss wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t been used to white lies, or watched all four of Pyrrha’s victory speeches on repeat under her covers at Atlas. Pyrrha seemed to notice Weiss didn’t believe her, because she said hastily, “Maybe another time? When we’ve formally started training? I promised to tutor Ruby in Dust Mechanics—she’s waiting in the library.”</p><p>It was a clear dismissal. Even if her voice lilted up like a question on every sentence, she was already shifting to move away. Smarter to abandon this tack, think and regroup, retreat now and advance later... “Do you even want to be my partner?” Weiss blurted.</p><p>Pyrrha looked back. “I’m happy to be, Weiss,” she said. The smile in her voice grated down Weiss’ skin. “I just don’t think you understand what that means.”</p><p>The golden sheen of her armor disappeared down the hallway, leaving Weiss alone in front of a dingy locker room. <em>Brilliant.</em></p><p>           </p><p>(Weiss never told anyone, but:</p><p>She followed. She stood outside the library, feeling vaguely sick, as Pyrrha strode cheerfully inside and called, “Hello, Ruby!” She sidled up to the corner of the window and peered through...</p><p>Jaune had evidently won a game of Hunter’s Chess. Ruby, wailing in defeat, was draped across the study table in a death pose. Nora and Yang screamed, “VICTORY!” and tackled Jaune, who also went down into the table. Blake and Ilia were tucked away in the stacks, talking quietly, but they both looked up and rolled their eyes at the disturbance. Emerald and Nora were capable of no such subtlety. They were cackling, at least until Ren came up and calmly dragged Nora away by the back of her jacket.</p><p>“Nora, that’s enough.”</p><p>“Aww, party pooper!”—“Yeah, come on, ninja dude!”—“I’ll get you next time, Jaune!” Ruby vowed, still face down on the table—“Sorry! I’m so sorry! Everyone, let’s just settle down!”—and even though Pyrrha continued her unnecessary apologies, Weiss realized with a start that she looked...happy.</p><p>“Kind of sickening, isn’t it?” came a familiar drawl from the shadows.</p><p>Weiss whirled around, dropping into stance, but Mercury merely leaned away from the blade as if it were an inconvenient cat whisker. “What are you doing here, Mercury?”</p><p>“I <em>am</em> a student,” said Mercury. “Maybe I’m quenching my thirst for knowledge.”</p><p>“I highly doubt that.”</p><p>“You’re right.” Mercury’s eyes gleamed in amusement. “So, Weiss—having trouble with your dream partner?”</p><p>Weiss stiffened. “That’s really none of your business.”</p><p>Mercury smirked again, but this time, Weiss thought she saw something behind it—grief, perhaps, or pain. “Guess not. But that’s how it is: expectations are a bastard.”)</p><p> </p><p>“Sparring and Weapons Training is not the most important class you will take at Beacon,” Professor Goodwitch said. Her glare seemed to pierce through every one of the twenty students crowded into the seats of the sparring arena. The boy beside Weiss, who was shaking so badly the arrow-gun on his hip threatened to go off, went absolutely still. His whimper could be heard from three rows down.</p><p>Weiss, for her part, sat up straighter. Far be it from her to contradict <em>Professor Glynda Goodwitch</em>, but she did consider Sparring and Weapons Training her most important priority. Her performance in these fights would determine her physical class ranking, and how could she ever achieve her goal if her stellar academic record was backed with a mediocre physical one? Schnees were not mediocre. Ever.</p><p>“It is not the most important class,” Professor Goodwitch continued, “but it is an essential one. You have learned the characteristics of the monsters we fight, you have learned the strategies, but here you are required to <em>put them to use</em>. In this class you will not rush in blindly—” Ruby squirmed under her gaze, “—and you will not solely rely on your physical strength. You will use what you have learned to fight, and through the fight, you will <em>continue</em> to learn.</p><p>“In essence,” Professor Goodwitch snapped her riding crop and allowed the ghost of a smile to cross her face, “don’t be stupid.”</p><p>Everyone was much too intimidated to laugh, and Professor Goodwitch moved right along with such a crisp, stately grace Weiss wondered if she had imagined the woman saying something so blunt. “Now, I’ve reviewed your performances in the Initiation, but I would like to get a preliminary measure of how each team fights, now that everything is official. I’ve selected a Grimm opponent for each team that I feel will be appropriately challenging. Should anything go wrong, I will endeavor to step in. Team JRNY, if you please.”</p><p>Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Yang made their way down to the arena. It was large, flat, and circular with plenty of room to run but no cover. The silver floor reflected the three floodlights above—no shadows to hide in. Jaune especially looked nervous at this, but Yang, who wouldn’t know what “exposed” felt like if it hit her in the face, just grinned and winked at Ruby. To Weiss’ endless chagrin, Ruby waved back. She cupped her hands around her mouth: “THAT’S MY SISTER!”</p><p>Blake winced at the volume. “It’s starting.”</p><p>Professor Goodwitch threw up a magical barrier and opened the lower door to the arena in one smooth motion. Jaune swallowed. “Ready, Team—<em>Aaah!</em>”</p><p>A large, curved horn slammed into Jaune’s breastplate and sent him flying—two Boarbatusks! They squealed in anger, one charging at Ren while the other rolled up into a spiky, armored ball and shot toward Yang.</p><p>Ren tried to slide into a defensive stance, but there wasn’t enough time; it was much too fast for an untrained huntsman to land a precise blow. Weiss saw the monster’s snout come in range, saw its head turn for a devastating knockback—Ren’s eyes widened, and he threw out his Aura—and then <em>BOOM!</em> <em>Crack!</em> Nora’s grenade blast splintered the bone mask and sheered off both horns, allowing Ren to roll to safety. The Grimm reared and bleated with pain, before charging forward again...straight toward a winded Jaune.</p><p>Yang, tangling with the other Boarbatusk, saw the danger and retreated back toward Jaune. Every one of her fiery punches was deflected by the mask or the horns, and Weiss shook her head—<em>really</em>? Ruby was vibrating in her seat.</p><p>“<em>A little...help here!”</em> Yang called as the Boarbatusk finally tired of the onslaught and forced Yang to dodge away from a tight, speeding ball of spikes. “That one’s gonna eat Jaune!”</p><p>“Not if I can help it!” Using the momentum of her grenade, Nora blasted across the arena—but she and Ren had been recovering on the other side, and the Boarbatusk got there first. Its horn struck the flat of Jaune’s sword with a grating <em>shhrrk</em>!</p><p>“Aah!” Jaune said again, very leader-like. He scrambled backward, allowing Nora to land another bone-splintering hit. “Right...okay...underside!”</p><p>“<em>What?”</em> Yang shouted.</p><p>“Underside! Their weakness—it’s their underside!”</p><p>Ruby smiled. “Yeah, go Jaune!” she said under her breath.</p><p>“Got it!” Nora blasted off again, toward the Boarbatusk she’d already wounded twice. Weiss wondered if the girl had developed a vendetta. This left Jaune to stumble awkwardly to his feet alone, waving Ren off to help Yang.</p><p>“Tell Yang...more uppercuts. Less direct punches. Knock...the head.”</p><p>“Are you certain your head isn’t knocked?”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s funny, Ren. Just go.”</p><p>After that, the Boarbatusks were dispatched in short order: Nora, completely ignoring Jaune’s advice, buried the pointed end of her hammer in the Grimm’s eye. Yang rolled hers over with a crushing uppercut before delivering the deathblow to the soft white abdomen.</p><p>The buzzer sounding to signal the end of the fight was somehow more deafening than the crack of Yang’s bullets.</p><p>As Team JNRY recovered—Jaune on his knees panting, Ren leaning against Nora, Yang, unusually subdued, checking her gauntlets for any damage—Professor Goodwitch strode into the arena. Without looking, she flicked her riding crop, and the scorch marks on the floor silvered back over. “Mr. Arc,” she said crisply, “though you have tremendous Aura, you must build up your physical endurance and combat skills to use it effectively. And please do try to be aware of your surroundings. Ms. Valkyrie, while Mr. Lie did need assistance, take care not to leave an incapacitated member of your team in the open. Mr. Lie, please work on your reaction time, and Ms. Xiao Long—<em>please</em> channel that power of yours into some kind of strategy.” Chastened, Team JRNY stared at their feet until Professor Goodwitch’s glare let up. “For a first performance, you four have a solid foundation. I expect you to build on it.”</p><p>Weiss glanced over and saw the rest of her team paying close attention to the post-fight analysis. At least they were that competent. Pyrrha was nodding thoughtfully—as a former tournament champion, she had probably picked out all these weaknesses during the fight. Blake was studying the battleground through narrow eyes, as though considering what she might have done, and Ruby...Ruby was staring straight down at the door to the arena, eyes so steely they made Weiss pause. “Guys,” she said quietly, a second before Professor Goodwitch’s words rang out:</p><p>“Team RBWP, please take your places.”</p><p> </p><p>Weiss gripped Myternaster tight, focusing on her breathing. <em>In. Out. In. Out.</em> She’d beaten the Knight. She’d beaten the Nevermore. She’d studied and worked, she knew her blade like an extension of her own body, she had Pyrrha <em>freaking</em> Nikos at her back (perhaps). She’d watched Jaune and his team, too, and really, if the bar was flying across the room two seconds into the fight...she shook her head. No. No excuses.</p><p>She couldn’t just be better—she would be <em>excellent</em>.</p><p><em>Well? You </em>are <em>going to win, aren’t you? If you fail, you won’t have deserved to go at all.</em></p><p>The door opened. The buzzer sounded.</p><p>...<em>A Beowolf? ONE Beowolf?</em></p><p>Weiss almost took her eyes off the charging Grimm to cast an incredulous look at Professor Goodwitch. All this talk about selecting enemies for each team, and she’d decided that Weiss—<em>Weiss Schnee!</em>—was fit to battle a single Beowolf? How absurd! How <em>insulting!</em> She’d cut down at least two of these in Forever Fall, and three more with Pyrrha beside her! At least Team JRNY had been paired against two Boarbatusks, but this—did Professor Goodwitch think them incompetent?</p><p>“Weiss, watch out!” Pyrrha said, and Weiss’s vision was suddenly blocked by the back of a golden shield. The Beowolf’s claws glanced off the metal with an echoing <em>CLANG</em>! Three quick claps from her rifle, and the Beowolf moved back into a safe range. “Are you all right?” She looked Weiss over, seemingly debating whether to go after the target or tend to her.</p><p>Weiss blinked. No, this was worse than being thrown across the room—this was her standing around like an idiot being useless! It didn’t matter if her quarry was a towering, indomitable Knight or a lowly Beowolf; she would kill it, and she would kill it well. She knocked Pyrrha’s shield aside and raised Myternaster. “I’m <em>fine</em>! Focus on the fight.”</p><p>Not waiting to see if Pyrrha responded, Weiss shot forward. Boarbatusks were too fast for precision, but a Beowolf—large, lumbering, stupid—was particularly vulnerable to these kinds of blows. She leveled Myternaster’s gleaming point at the monster’s eye, imagining it piercing the flesh and the mindless brain behind it...</p><p>...but a trail of red rose petals, a long, ugly slash, and the Beowolf reared up, roaring in pain. Weiss ran headlong into a black torso, her rapier’s point skittering off bone ridges.</p><p>“<em>Ruby!</em>”</p><p>“Sorry!” Ruby said, looking honestly contrite even as her focus snapped back to the wounded Beowolf. “But listen, Blake is going to immobilize it from the back, and you stick it to the ground with your snowflake thing, and then Pyrrha and I can—”</p><p>“I’ve got it!” Pyrrha’s voice called out, all sweetness and <em>you can stand aside now, it’s all right, dear.</em> Weiss <em>hated </em>it. Her golden shield cut toward the limping Beowolf, a burst of light that struck true and shattered the bone mask. Blinded, the creature reeled backward...</p><p>...and rock pieces flew outward, as a clone of Blake was trampled underfoot. Ruby grimaced, and Weiss could read it all over her face—so much for the plan. Her slightly strained, “Sorry, Blake,” overlapped with Pyrrha’s “I’m sorry!” in an incoherent mess of them all being <em>useless</em>. Wasn’t this supposed to be a fight?</p><p>“This is ridiculous!” Weiss shouted, flinging her hand toward the Beowolf. Since the buzzer hadn’t gone off yet, Weiss could only assume it was still alive. But it couldn’t have been by much; it just looked like a haphazard black lump, groaning and snarling in pain. It posed no threat. And yet they still hadn’t finished it off! “Any one of us could have killed that thing by ourselves! This is why we stay out of each other’s way.”</p><p>Ruby, Blake, and Pyrrha blinked back at her, stunned. <em>If they weren’t going to do it themselves...well, what did you expect, Weiss?</em> Scoffing, she stalked toward the downed Beowolf, angling her blade down at its exposed face...</p><p>“Careful, Weiss!” Ruby said.</p><p>“Honestly. Just stay there, Ruby!”</p><p>But as if embodying her father’s cruel love, come back to make her eat her words, the Beowolf’s head turned. Roared with all its might, its bloodied, sagging lips flapping, the blast of hot breath so wretched and terrifying Weiss stepped back. And though it was a corpse reanimated, it <em>lurched</em> forward, one half of its body and then the other, raising its claws as if to say, <em>I’ll take you with me</em>...</p><p>(Weiss had read once that caged animals who were meant to be wild fought most fiercely. Winter, always a little wearier, had shaken her head. <em>No. Cornered animals do.</em>)</p><p>—and Blake’s ribbon wrapped around her middle, yanking her away, as a sniper shot and a spear both drove through the remains of the Beowolf’s head.</p><p>The buzzer sounded.</p><p>           </p><p>The fights continued for another half an hour. Team Cinder went after them. Mercury had winked and said, “I’ll show you how it’s done,” but Cinder pulled him away by his collar before he found a sword sticking in his eye. At least it was gratifying when Mercury did not, in fact, show her how it was done—although they had great fighting ability, they needed to familiarize themselves with each other’s styles and weapons. <em>Ms. Fall, you seem uncomfortable with your own partner’s weapons. And Mr. Black, your kicks are borderline careless—exercise some respect for the situation, please.</em></p><p>But as thrilling as Mercury’s dressing-down had been, that didn’t stop Professor Goodwitch’s other words from echoing in her head:</p><p>
  <em>“Team RBWP.” They all shrank. “I know you are all exceptional fighters. But exceptional fighters are not Huntresses. Huntresses face the Grimm—any type of Grimm, every type of Grimm—every moment of the day, and that is why they have an unparalleled knowledge of the basics. Leadership,” she glanced at Ruby, who moved farther under the lip of her hood, “communication,” here Blake got the stare, and she gripped her necklace in shame, “their strengths,” Pyrrha, “and their limits.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Weiss felt her insides freeze and drop as the veteran huntress’ gaze locked onto her for a moment, before skating right past. She should have taken out the Beowolf immediately—shouldn’t have wasted time arguing with Ruby—should’ve said something to Pyrrha, anything!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She felt the brush of warm metal on her left: the solid edge of Pyrrha’s shield against her arm as the champion shifted on her feet. Weiss breathed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I expect you all are capable enough to evaluate that performance for yourselves,” Professor Goodwitch continued quietly. “I know you four are smart and dedicated, and I have no doubt you will grow as fighters. But whether or not you grow as a team—that will decide if you will be Huntresses, too.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She turned her back, about to call the next team down.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then a small voice under a red hood: “We’ll try, Professor.”          </em>
</p><p>“Weiss.”</p><p>Weiss opened her squeezed-shut eyes, blinking the past away. Her teammates looked back at her like it was that first night in the dorm room again. As if they were seeing each other for the very first time.</p><p>Ruby smiled. Met her eyes. “We’ll try.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so much for your interest in my strange, ill-advised work! I've written this chapter and the next, so if things don't shift in the narrative too much, they'll be going up in pretty short order. No promises on an update schedule after that.</p><p>As you can see, we're going to be shifting POVs for each chapter. It's tricky and a bit of a risk, I know, but I really want to challenge myself and do all of these characters justice. A big part of this rewrite is structural and plot-driven, trying to give RWBY a different foundation; however, I'm a sucker for character first and foremost, and there are just too many fun characters to play with.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. WHEREOF WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The team tries. Blake runs, and the past chases.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The trees in Forever Fall moved like one great shadow, undulating as the wind swirled through the branches. Leaves drifted down in soft pinwheels. And beyond the tower of Beacon, which rose up like a great pillar of light, there was the steady rumbling of the city: footsteps on the streets, the flicker of Dust-lit lanterns, neon buzz on shop signs. It reminded Blake of a vast, murmuring heartbeat.</p><p>Or train tracks—all shivering and steel.</p><p>“I thought I’d find you here." Ilia dropped down next to Blake, feet dangling off the edge. Perfect quiet, as always. “Couldn’t sleep?”</p><p>Blake cast a cursory glance toward her—or rather, at the shadow in the shadow that was her. Ilia wasn’t really trying to hide. She’d chosen a color that wasn’t quite the concrete of the roof or the indigo of the sky, and with Blake, her eyes were always a striking luminescent grey. Besides, though her chameleon trait hid her expertly from human eyes...</p><p>“You can take that off, you know,” Ilia said. Blake forced her ears not to twitch under her old friend’s scrutiny. “It’s just us.”</p><p>“You of all people know why I can’t.”</p><p>Ilia sighed. “Well, I won’t judge you for it. But it’s been more than a month, Blake—are we going to talk about it now?”</p><p>Blake’s fingers moved unbidden toward her necklace, and the chill of panic, the teetering fight-or-flight response, seized her spine. She felt the past creeping up behind her: a predator, or a familiar shadow. But she turned stubbornly to the stars. “Not tonight.”</p><p>Ilia leveled her with a long, measuring stare, then nodded. For now. “You <em>are </em>in a good mood.”</p><p>Blake let a ghost of a smirk touch her lips. “You mean because I’m not pinning you to a wall?”</p><p>A strange flash of color lit Ilia’s cheeks, as though she were surprised Blake was even acknowledging their first disastrous meeting at Beacon. But Ilia was nothing if not controlled. The slip was gone as quickly as it came. She laughed, wry and wistful. Like the leaves coming down. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“What are you doing here?!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The sound of Ilia’s back slamming into the wall made Blake wince (wince at the tortured cry, the screech of the rails, rattling chains in the darkness of a train car) but she kept Gambol Shroud up. She felt the tremble of her old friend’s throat under the edge, but she kept it up. The sound of Ilia’s laugh, as dry and warm as ever, washed over her, but she kept—the blade—up.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If it was only because of the fear locking her whole body in place, well, Ilia didn’t need to know that. But from the way she looked at her, undaunted and fond, she did. Ilia had always known Blake. For better or worse.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Could ask you the same thing, Blake.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t play with me!”</em>
</p><p><em>“I’m </em>not<em>.” Ilia’s eyes flickered scarlet, and she grabbed Blake’s hand, trying to force the sword down. “I came to find you! You just disappeared!”</em></p><p>
  <em>Came to find you. Came to find you. Who came to find her, really? “Did Adam send you?”</em>
</p><p><em>“What—?</em>”</p><p><em>“I </em>said<em>, don’t play with me! You just show up at Beacon the day I’m initiated, with your own team, and you follow me up here—!”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Blake, wait a minute—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tell me the truth! Did Adam send you to take me back?”</em>
</p><p><em>This close, Blake was sure Ilia could feel her shaking. Sure she could see the naked fear on her face, much as she tried to swallow it down. And Ilia was smart—</em>there was the moment of realization<em>, Blake thought, vaguely sick, as Ilia’s spine loosened and her tight grip on Blake’s hand went slack and soothing. “Blake, look at me,” Ilia whispered. </em></p><p>
  <em>Blake did. Ilia’s eyes were blazing with truth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Adam didn’t send me. I don’t give a damn about him. I couldn’t care less about my team. I came here because my best friend up and left without a goodbye.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blake lowered the blade. Ilia inhaled sharply, and it was like something taut in the air finally snapped.  Suddenly they were hugging so fiercely Blake could not tell where one of them began or ended, as if they could close the distance of those painful months apart if now they held each other close. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Blake, please. Let’s go home.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And Blake wept, wept for the places that even at the top of Beacon’s tower she couldn’t see again.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Team RBWP was trying now—trying and failing, mostly. It was like trying to blend oil and water together, if some of the oil had the energy of caffeinated lightning and some of the water came from the most poisonous well in Atlas. Well, Pyrrha was nice enough, Blake supposed, but anytime she was around, Weiss’ rage in the face of her simple decency seemed to even it out.</p><p>Ruby was persistent, though. They’d all worked together to fight the Nevermore, she said, and if they could just do it again... She’d come up with a number of incomprehensibly named team attacks that she insisted they practice over and over to “recapture the magic.” It mostly left them all tired and irritated and sitting in a room covered in dummy straw.</p><p>She’d never tell Ruby this, but Blake was sure their fight against the Nevermore had been a fluke. If they had to fight it now, they’d all be dead, and Blake might welcome it. “Okay, team! We almost had it that time! Let’s run it again.”</p><p>Weiss scowled. She’d retreated to the back of the practice room to reload her Dust chambers, evidently unable to withstand their presence for more than five minutes at a time. “We did <em>not</em> almost have it. Blake almost cut me in half with that last strike!”</p><p>Blake rolled her eyes. An exaggeration—she’d jumped backward off a practice dummy and thrown out her whip for balance. (She hadn’t trusted the glyph blooming under her feet, the damned snowflake like a demon’s eye, waiting to shatter beneath her weight or grab her and never let her go...)</p><p>“You dodged,” Blake said blandly. And if she got a little thrill of vindictive pleasure at the way Weiss’ face reddened...well, the heiress did make it too easy.</p><p>“Dodging was <em>not</em> part of the plan!”</p><p>“Blake, you are supposed to land on her glyphs. It’s part of the Checkmate move! She’ll pull you back out, I promise.” Ruby’s eyes flicked pleadingly from her to Weiss, as if begging them to understand. “You will, won’t you, Weiss?”</p><p>Weiss flicked her sword like there was some distasteful insect on it. “Of course I will, I’m not an amateur.”</p><p>“Well, we’re all amateurs, aren’t we?” Pyrrha said kindly. “Weiss, this is only practice.” She must be a saint, Blake thought, or perhaps in love with pain—Weiss would only take that kindness and spit it back out.</p><p>Weiss growled, and sensing the oncoming explosion, Ruby came between them in a burst of petals. “That’s enough for now! Team attacks don’t form overnight, haha, we’ll try again tomorrow!”</p><p>She shoved them out the door. Weiss squawked; Pyrrha, seeming bemused that Ruby would even try to move her, shrugged and walked out.</p><p>Blake sighed. Ruby deflated, collapsed her scythe, and walked back over to sit beside her. Together they surveyed the practice room—the slashed dummies, the scattered straw, rifle shot in the walls and a charred spot from a Dust bolt gone awry. A hurricane, not a team, had come through here.</p><p>Blake sheathed her blade and turned to her leader (her partner, this stranger). “Do you really think we can do this, Ruby?”</p><p>Ruby looked up. “Of course I do,” she said, as though she thought Blake very silly for asking.</p><p>And Blake knew in her soul this team was doomed—too much history, too many personalities sheering against each other—but Ruby’s eyes were so steady and familiar that she couldn’t help but dream.</p><p>(<em>“Of course we’re doing something!” Adam exclaimed, and all the mothers in the camp shushed him because it was midnight. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But Blake—you’ve got to see it. There’s never been anything like the White Fang, and that’s why it’s going to change the world!” So earnest and young, and Blake wanted to trace the way the lamplight fell on his dark face, the way it etched belief in every curve and line.</em>)</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Did you hear about the new guy?” Ilia plopped down gracelessly on the ground next to Blake. Blake couldn’t blame her; they’d been working on this shelter since dawn, and it was noon now. The summer sun was at its zenith, fat and bright and sweltering above them. “Apparently Sienna sent him.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blake took another drink from her water pouch, though it felt like she was swallowing earth instead. She passed it off to Ilia, who stared down at the opening with flushed cheeks before bringing it to her lips and tipping it all the way back. So dramatic, her friend. Still, no drop fell into the dry, caked dirt or trailed, undrunk, down her jaw. Between dramatic and careful, Ilia always chose the latter. Blake appreciated it. “I haven’t heard, no.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Haven’t you been here forever?” Ilia teased, knocking her shoulder. Then her face went grave. The background buzz of the construction crew seemed to fade out. “Sienna thinks it’s going to get worse. The new guy, Adam, he’s here to train defense.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The words, “but Tukson already teaches defense?” stuck in Blake’s throat as she thought about it. Thought about the shelter going up around them, the shaky wooden bones of a makeshift solution for a community that had been devastated by five Ursa. Thought about how the leader, gaunt and twitchy, had pulled her aside and told her, “It was an hour before they showed up.” Thought about the whispers going around Vale, the unrest hanging like a cloud. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s happening again,” Blake said wearily. She watched as an antelope Faunus—Malia? Mara?—struggled to lift a piece of plywood. Tukson, his sideburns matted with sweat, ran to help her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We’ll keep fighting,” said Ilia determinedly. But her voice sounded just as hollow. “That’s what we do, right?”</em>
</p><p><em>“We’ve been doing it our whole lives, and it’s just happening again.” Blake knew it was bitter. She could almost hear her father’s counsel in her mind, low and disapproving. </em>Be patient. Be unwavering. Be kind.<em> But when she could hear the high, hiccupping cries of a toddler in a half-trampled bassinet, when Ilia was working out cramps in her calloused hands beside her, when Blake looked ahead and saw the years and years before her same as the years and years behind...was it worth it?</em></p><p>
  <em>“What’s this, then?” a voice boomed: like fresh lightning in a dying storm. “Come on, everyone! It’ll be done soon!” The toddler’s cries stopped. Ilia froze.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blake twisted around and saw him. Cresting the hill, not quite there—he wasn’t real yet. Just all he could have been. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>If she dreamed, morning disabused her of any naïve ideas.</p><p>Ruby and Yang, always bickering; Yang, turning to her as if Blake were a spy-soldier and begging for more information. It was Blake’s own fault. She had, in a very loose sense, been reporting back to Yang for a few weeks: if Ruby hadn’t slept, whether she had nightmares, when she had eaten half of her cookie stash after dinner. It felt uncomfortably like slipping in and out of the crossfire. But then, Yang always looked painfully exhausted, and so desperately protective—Blake had started feeding her the information less for Ruby’s sake than Yang’s own.</p><p>Weiss, snarling something at Mercury, then staring pitiful daggers into Pyrrha’s back. Pyrrha, speaking more jovially with Jaune and Nora than she ever had with any of her own team. It didn’t matter to Blake, and truly she had no love for Weiss, but it made something twist inside her to see the expression on Weiss’ face: angry, bitter, pleading with the edge out.</p><p>Mercury sniped back; the hurt in Weiss’ face cleared, and so did Blake’s strange sympathy.</p><p>“Hey, lunkheads, save your energy,” Emerald grumbled at Yang and Ruby, who were engaged in some kind of Aura-enhanced thumb war. “We’re sparring again today. Pairs this time.”</p><p>Ruby and Yang immediately sat down and started arguing over who they wanted to fight. “I call Nora!” Ruby said cheerfully.</p><p>Yang shook her head. “Nora’s on my team, I get dibs!”</p><p>“But I haven’t figured out the grenade deployment system on her hammer yet! <em>Yaaang, </em>please!”</p><p>“Rock-paper-scissors, then.”</p><p>“<em>ULTIMATE</em> ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS!” Ruby pulled out her scythe.</p><p>It promised to be another breakfast disaster of epic proportions, but Blake’s eyes were elsewhere, drawn toward Ilia’s like gravity and muscle memory. Ilia was looking back. Could she hear what Blake could, the oiled lines hoisting the flag up, Tukson’s gravelly voice at sunrise, “<em>Pair off!”</em>?</p><p>Ilia nodded. They hadn’t even needed to ask back then, moving to each other’s side like a divided stream running together again. Blake rubbed her necklace. Felt the grooves and ridges worn smooth. <em>I’ve got your back.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“So what’s been going on with you?” Ilia said, trying to disentangle her swords from Blake’s ribbons. Patches of her arms blinked light red. “And have I told you that your weapon is—bone and dark!—totally unfair?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Smirking, Blake pressed her advantage, yanking Ilia off-balance and darting in for a blow. Ilia barely managed to get her weapon up. “Only every time we spar. And don’t say that, there’s children in camp.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“They’ve heard worse. What’s been going on with you and Adam?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blake hesitated, feeling the blush rise in her cheeks. “I’m not talking about it.”</em>
</p><p><em>One downside to partnering with the same person for years was that they grew into your weapon along with you, till you were never sure which one of you your own blade answered to. Ilia tangled in her ribbon again, but this time used the leverage to drag Blake off her feet. Blake had only a second to sense the bolt of electricity crackling toward her; she tried to retract, but—the electricity shuddered through her, and she let go with a yelp, hair sticking up. And Ilia had the gall to complain about </em>Blake’s<em> weapon?</em></p><p>
  <em>Ilia flicked her sword and Gambol Shroud flew neatly into her hand. Traitor, Blake thought of both of them, mostly fond.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I win!” Ilia said. She was gold now. Cocky. “Are you going to tell me now that I’m holding your weapon hostage?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You drive a hard bargain,” Blake said dryly. How to play this? If she adamantly refused to talk, Ilia would drop it, though she would cast her sideways glances for the rest of the day. But Ilia was also her oldest friend here; she remembered pressing shoulder-to-shoulder with her at rallies, bandaging her electric burns when she first got Lightning Lash, holding her hand whenever news of the Schnee dust mines limped into camp. If she trusted anyone to keep her secret...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Blake!” Before Blake could make a decision, Adam came over, an easy lope in his gait, an easier smile on his face. It was no wonder he energized camp in a way Blake hadn’t seen for a long time: he was so classically handsome, with his proud jaw and his bright eyes and his horns visible through thick, dark curls. And when he opened his mouth, people leaned in to listen like it was a song, and maybe it was. Blake could hear it running through camp like a wildfire in Adam’s wake: Sienna picked well. He’ll be the next.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hi, Adam,” Ilia said, clipped. Blake crashed back down to earth, almost laughing at herself. Her old friend was one of the few who weren’t utterly charmed. “What’s up?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I was wondering if you could spare Blake? I want to talk to her about some plans.” The corner of Adam’s mouth tilted up. Oh, Blake had no doubt they’d be reviewing plans, heads bent together over maps and zoning permits; Adam’s first love was the Faunus. So was Blake’s. But maybe after they sorted out the new shelters and the food drives that were running low and the patrol routes of the defense team, that curled corner of his mouth said—well, he’d kiss her with the same fire he brought to everything else. Hands close around her, breathing hope into her ribs. Blake was already breathless.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ilia’s gaze darted between them with the same electricity as her whip. Blake burned. “Blake?” she said evenly, loyally.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well, you did already win,” Blake replied, trying to keep her voice level. “Just...for the rest of practice? It won’t be long.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ilia stared at her, and Blake could almost see the moment it slotted together. Then her eyes shuttered off. She nodded. Her skin was perfectly tan. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got your back, Blake.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sparring was everything and nothing like it had been in the White Fang. Goodwitch paired them and slowly wended through the arena, the click of her heels a warning to anyone who was foolish enough not to take this seriously. Occasionally she would snap her riding crop to halt an errant fireball, and she would call out bits of guidance (often simultaneously). If Blake squinted, she could almost be Tukson, standing on top of his tree trunk calling out forms.</p><p>But the air here was artificially cool, instead of the musky warmth of summer; and Blake couldn’t hear the bustle of the rest of the camp, only the clanging of other weapons in a large room; and there were no little children on the sidelines, threatening to jump on Tukson and derail the whole thing...</p><p>“EAT THIS, JAUNE!”</p><p>“<em>Aah</em>, Nora, not the face! <em>Not the face!</em>”</p><p>
  <em>Okay, maybe that wasn’t so different.</em>
</p><p>Ilia paused, her eyes going to the wayward pair, too. Nora’s hammer had indeed missed his face, but Jaune’s armguards were smoking. He yelped and ducked behind his shield as Nora came at him again: “I yield! Nora, I yield, I yield, I yield!”</p><p>If she heard him, Nora wasn’t close enough to stop. The blunt metal head of the hammer continued to fall, and Jaune began to brace himself for impact, stiffening in a way that would only make it hurt more when he slammed into the ground...</p><p>...and Pyrrha’s spear flew out of the other corner. It struck Nora just hard enough to divert her course, and she made a sizable dent in the floor just left of Jaune. “Thanks!” she grinned, popping up and saluting Pyrrha.</p><p>“Oh, no, it was just an accident,” Pyrrha said. Beside Blake, Ilia snorted—then looked mortified and furious when she heard Weiss do the same.</p><p>“Can we get back to <em>our</em> sparring match now?” Weiss huffed, and Ilia, who clearly agreed, didn’t know what to do with that.</p><p>To save her friend’s dignity, Blake attacked. And just like that, they flowed together again—slash for slash, whips bending and curling around each other but never touching, a dance that they had perfected. Blake felt it in her bones. What a relief, a shallow, undeserved relief: that even after she had left, Ilia still knew her. Still trusted her enough to laugh as she leaned away from Blake’s flying blade, still went for Blake’s feet and tried to unbalance her, still smiled when Blake finally nicked her arm and won the round. “You still won’t go for the center,” Ilia said.</p><p>“And you still play dirty.”</p><p>“World isn’t fair.” Ilia healed the cut on her arm and reset. “Blake, what happened?”</p><p>“What?” The question startled Blake; she barely ducked under the crackling lash of Ilia’s whip. “We’re not talking about this here.”</p><p>“We have to,” Ilia said through gritted teeth. Blake slashed at her; she blocked the blade and pressed in. “It’s the one place you won’t run away from me, apparently.”</p><p>Break away, backflip—Ilia threw her whip out again, and Blake wove through the one, two, three shots of golden light. The fourth came too fast and Blake threw up a clone to take it. In its rubble, Ilia came flying at her. She was always less patient. “Blake, please just tell me what happened.”</p><p>“It has nothing to do with you!” Duck—dodge—slash! Damn! Ilia caught it on the side of her blade, forced Blake’s sword down, and stepped in closer. Her eyes were so pleading, filming over into blue, that Blake had to look away.</p><p>“Look. All I know is, Adam called for that mission, you went with him, and he came back alone. Everyone thought you were dead! I only thought—because there wasn’t a body—”</p><p>“<em>Just drop it!</em>” Blake hissed, phasing away. The clone locked in with Ilia pulsed once and then exploded, engulfing her old friend in smoke and flame.</p><p>Immediately, Blake felt sick. She sent her ribbon out to wrap around Ilia and pull her from the smoke, but she felt the deflection ripple through her. It was a deep, deep pain, as though she had just run headlong into the walls shuttering off Ilia’s eyes, gone too far and nicked a heart. Her blade flew back into her hand.</p><p>(<em>Ilia hated explosions. When you were in the White Fang, you learned to deal with them—but Ilia’s hand would always grip hers a little too tight as the ground shook and the smoke went up. Some of the newer recruits made fun of her, and she let go of Blake’s hand just long enough to sock them in the face. “Have some respect,” she growled, and then looked from the groaning recruits to the dissipating trails in the distance, as though she could hear the sound of the blast echoing.)</em></p><p>Through the smoke, a flash of light—Blake let the whip pull tight around her blade, partly to drag her friend out, partly a kind of penance. Ilia’s face was caked in ash and healing burns, but she was smiling. “Guess you still play dirty too, huh?” she coughed. “Good for you. But you owe me an answer.”</p><p>Blake wet her lips. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t think she could get the words out of her throat: too heavy, burned too much. “Trust me, it’s better if you don’t know.”</p><p>“Blake, I’m with you. I’ve got your back.”</p><p>Nothing for it. Blake let go of Gambol Shroud and backflipped away. The distance rose up between them, but Blake saw Ilia’s face drop, then set, then twist as if she were inches away.</p><p>Underneath her ribbon, Blake’s ears ached.</p><p>Ilia flicked her whip and sent Gambol Shroud to the floor with a wince-inducing <em>clang</em>. Ruby looked up from where she was fighting Yang, shifting her scythe just a little, but Blake shook her head. Uncertainly, Ruby went back to her fight, catching a punch and a kick before she stopped hesitating.</p><p>Ilia went for the feet, of course. Blake let her, felt the ground go out from under her as she crashed to her knees. Stayed there as Ilia approached and aimed her sword—and delicately lifted her necklace out of her shirt.</p><p>The worn bit of white plastic, with its melted, blackened edges worn smooth by Blake’s touch, would be unrecognizable to anyone else. But Ilia’s eyes widened immediately. They’d gotten their masks at the same time, after all.</p><p>“I win,” Ilia said bitterly, after a moment. “Are you going to tell me now?”</p><p>
  <em>The train was Adam’s idea. His strange, brilliant, stupid idea formed between kissing Blake on the edges of camp and rallying crowds so thick he got lost in them. “You’ll see,” he said breathlessly, his fingertips hot and sure along the gooseflesh of her skin. “It’ll change things. Really, this time.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blake, who had heard so many people promise change that the word had hollowed out, believed him. Gods, she believed him, and it pulsed like a living thing in her chest.</em>
</p><p>“Blake?”</p><p>
  <em>The train was Adam’s idea. His strange, brilliant, stupid idea formed when news of a Dust mine collapse swept through camp like a plague. It had been twenty Faunus this time, and the Atlas chapter was overwhelmed. Between the families who relied on them and the corporate lawyers looking to keep the whole thing quiet...they had sent a messenger, shivering like the dead, to beg Sienna for help.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Outside, the camp was in mourning. Some people were making posters with the photos of the lost miners, others hoisting up black flags on the mast. In the afternoon a timid swan Faunus had come in and asked Adam and Blake to give a eulogy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They said yes—of course they said yes—but afterward, Adam had torn up their tent. Sliced their table in half, crumpled their papers, thrown books straight through the canvas. Blake watched him rage silently: all wildfire with nowhere to aim.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When he calmed down enough to see the wreckage, Adam held her close, and they were both shaking. “We have to fix this,” Adam whispered hotly into her shoulder; Blake wasn’t sure if the heat was from his breath or his tears. “I know how to fix this.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“How?” Blake said numbly, knowing he wasn’t talking about their tent. The Dust mine collapse had been met with shock, but not surprise. They were never surprised now. How could something that broken be fixed?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We rescue them before they get to the mines,” he replied. “It’s too dangerous to pull them out of the mines once they’re there, but...they bring the workers in, right? On a train? So we hit the train, and...”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“...we free them,” Blake finished. Adam looked at her, and his smile lit up his tear-stained face with a painful kind of beauty. He kissed her forehead.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We free them.”</em>
</p><p>“Ms. Belladonna, Ms. Amitola, if you two aren’t hurt, you may continue sparring.”</p><p>Blake got to her feet and hoped that she looked chastened instead of utterly drained. “Yes, Professor.”</p><p>Ilia said nothing. Blake grabbed her hand. “Ilia, I’m sorry, but I can’t...”</p><p>(<em>Light—heat—“GET OUT!”—“No, don’t—!”—“I’m going to kill them!”—“Stop! PLEASE!”—“Gods, what have we done?”</em>)</p><p>Ilia yanked her hand away. Ten paces. Sword up. “Reset.”</p><p> </p><p>After (and with a bitter taste in her mouth, Blake wondered if she had too much practice dividing her life into befores and afters), they avoided each other. Or they meant to—because a decade in the White Fang was hard to walk away from, and Ilia had always been too loyal for her own good. Blake was hardly surprised when she sensed Ilia with her on the roof, silent as always, the very night of their ill-fated spar.</p><p>“I’m sorry about today,” she said, not looking.</p><p>Ilia didn’t answer. She didn’t come down to sit beside her. Still, her shape shifted in the darkness, and that was answer enough.</p><p>She came the night after that, and the next. But whenever Blake tried to turn and talk to her, she would slip away, leaving Blake with a flash of red and blue eyes, and the rush of leaves falling down below.</p><p>So this was how it would be now. Selfishly, Blake was glad Ilia had stayed. Even if she no longer spoke or laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, her presence was like the piece of mask dangling from her neck. The reminder of a past she treasured—a reminder of the guilt she carried. And yet, she could not quite bring herself to let either of them go.</p><p>To distract herself, Blake turned her attention to her classes. She hadn’t come here to become a Huntress any more than Ilia had, but some of the material was genuinely interesting. The worst of it was dry enough to put her to sleep, which was a blessing in and of itself. Blake was even good at a few classes; Hunter Ethics and Philosophy felt like old discussions with Adam beneath burning lamp oil, condensed into paper. (<em>And Blake still remembered walking into Professor Anali’s class, the wave of joy and pride and bone-deep relief that crashed into her at the sight of a Faunus behind the desk. Like she had been walking for miles and finally met a traveler on the same road.</em>) It was worth the long nights and the ink stains on her hands to see Professor Anali smile softly at her over an essay.</p><p>Unfortunately, more studying meant more time in the library. And that meant more time around Weiss Schnee.</p><p>Inevitably, she was hunched over a study table in the back, surrounded by books and papers. She seemed to know the exact moment Blake walked in, because she looked up every time, and expression of faint surprise on her face never failed to make Blake scowl. There was always that sharp edge of contempt, too—<em>she could cut herself on it</em>, Blake thought.</p><p>After a week, Weiss approached Blake’s table. “Have you decided to apply yourself, then?”</p><p>Blake had picked a table at the front of the library to avoid this exact situation, but she supposed her luck had never been good. “What is <em>that</em> supposed to mean?”</p><p>“Your grades are mediocre at best. I assumed you weren’t taking this seriously.”</p><p><em>Assumed she wasn’t—! </em>“Look,” Blake said, gripping the edges of the table to keep herself steady, “not all of us grew up in a cushy Atlesian mansion with private tutors at our beck and call.” And with the harshness of years struggling against the company branded on the back of this girl’s jacket: “We didn’t have fathers who could pay off the schools with blood money every time we got a bad grade, either.”</p><p>Weiss’ face went strained and cold. “You don’t know anything about me!”</p><p>“And you assume you know everything about me,” Blake shot back. “Here we are.”</p><p>She picked up a book from the top of her stack and opened it, forcing herself not to look up as Weiss exhaled and stormed off. Only when she left the library an hour later did she allow herself to look. Weiss was still there—bent over and furiously scribbling, her ponytail sliding out of military precision. Her face was tight: a young miniature of her father, but no—not quite.</p><p>The last of the anger pulsing under Blake’s skin drained away. There was no satisfaction in this. <em>For both our sakes</em>, Blake thought tiredly as the door swung closed behind her, <em>this had better be the end of it.</em></p><p>But the next day, Weiss stalked over to Blake’s table again and threw down three journals full of meticulously handwritten notes. “Here,” she said in her pinched, exhausted way, as though she had been personally forced to eat several barrels’ worth of Vacuoan lemons. “Military Tactics and Etiquette. Start with Etiquette, Professor Hélène expects us to adhere to every detail.”</p><p>“What,” Blake said. Weiss huffed and sat down in the chair across from her. Even her skirt sounded affronted as it bounced up with a haughty little <em>floof</em>! of air.</p><p>“Tactics and Etiquette, Blake. Your two worst subjects.”</p><p>“Gee, thanks.”</p><p>“I’m <em>trying</em> to help you,” Weiss said. Her brow furrowed, and she pushed the journals toward Blake. “I—admit I was tactless, yesterday. Consider this a peace offering. And an investment, of sorts, I suppose...”</p><p>Another cutting line was already on the tip of Blake’s tongue—<em>tactless?</em> —but something in Weiss’ tone made her pause: a hastily smothered embarrassment, an honest frustration at Blake’s intransigence. Her chin jutted out with characteristic pride, but her spine was ramrod-straight, her shoulders raised as if for a blow. And what was this about an <em>offering</em>? It was almost as if she expected it to be a neat transaction, this for that, a debt owed and paid. How rude.</p><p>Well, Blake allowed, it was better than her father. Jacques Schnee racked up more debt by the minute, blood in a Dust mine, chains pulled tight, and he never paid.</p><p>For the first time she could remember, Blake considered what it would be like growing up under that kind of killer, instead of the gentle, sunbaked hands of Ghira Belladonna.</p><p>“Well?” Weiss snapped.</p><p>“I didn’t know you paid that much attention to me,” Blake said quietly.</p><p>Weiss sighed. “Blake, you <em>are </em>a member of my team. And we’re...<em>trying,</em> remember?”</p><p> </p><p>Now that Blake was looking for it, her whole team was, in their own awkward way, gathering around her.</p><p>Weiss studied with her nearly every afternoon. They still fought; Blake hated the way she snapped and ordered, a young Jacques Schnee glitching into place. Often, when they spoke, it felt like they were dragging a peace treaty out through their teeth. But it worked. Blake’s grades crept up, and in brief moments when Blake looked across and saw Weiss worrying on a pencil, or smoothing her skirt, or staring in wonder at the scarlet leaves outside—she could almost forget whose daughter this was.</p><p>(“Ilia, I think I’m going insane. Weiss Schnee was...almost <em>nice </em>today.”</p><p>There was a sour laugh, or the autumn breeze.)</p><p>Pyrrha became Blake’s new sparring partner. “Weiss couldn’t have liked that,” Blake remarked dryly when Pyrrha had informed her at the start of class.</p><p>“She didn’t,” said Pyrrha, ducking her head. “But she understands. You’re my teammate, too.”</p><p>Blake might have been caught off-guard, warm at the thought of Pyrrha Nikos viewing her, a Faunus from the cramped depths of Menagerie, as a real teammate. But she wasn’t. Mostly because when Pyrrha Nikos decided to fight you, warm and fuzzy weren’t really the feelings you had in mind. Blake came out of the session sore, winded, and swearing. Everything in her body screamed like it was rebelling against her. <em>What warm feelings</em>? she thought. <em>She’s tougher than a Grimm!</em></p><p>“Good fight today!” Pyrrha said cheerfully, slapping her on the back. “See you tomorrow, teammate!” Blake groaned. There was definitely a bruise there.</p><p>But there was also something like surprise; who would have expected the Mistrali champion to be so genuine? So honestly good-natured? And with such power and influence, too—she had no darkness, no underhanded motive, nothing. Blake shook her head.</p><p>(“Beacon is so strange. I kind of thought I’d hate her, but she’s...nice.”</p><p>An exasperated exhale. <em>You think everyone is nice, Blake. It gets you in trouble.</em>)</p><p>Ruby tried, too. Tried with all of them, as persistent as she was in those first days when all their sharp edges were glancing off each other. And rather despite all of them, her faith was paying off. On a cold, bright day, they finally managed to pull off Checkmate.</p><p>“On your left!” Weiss called, and Blake jumped, taking apart the dummy with two quick slashes before falling back—and Weiss’ glyph was there, hard and unyielding and solid, just like her. Blake let herself land on it almost without thinking as Pyrrha’s shield struck the last. It was only when Ruby turned her beaming gaze on them that she realized what she’d done.</p><p>“We did it! You did it!” Her hug bowled all three of them over. “Now we just have to do it again. Like, a lot!”</p><p>“Ugh,” Weiss groaned. But her tone was less sneering and more exasperation; the weeks of Ruby’s incessant, happy chatter had ground it down. “Let us rest, you dolt. And come up with a better name.”</p><p>Pyrrha frowned. “I like the name. It’s bold. And stylish.” She rose to her feet and pulled her shield and spear toward her.</p><p>“Of course <em>you </em>would think that. And why—just sit down, will you? We’re not actually doing this again.”</p><p>As Weiss and Pyrrha argued, Ruby looked over at her, smiling slightly. Somehow, Blake could read it perfectly: <em>I told you we could do this.</em></p><p>All things considered, Ruby was the one Blake was most wary of. She didn’t have Weiss’ prickly, direct sharpness or Pyrrha’s sunny, open warmth. No. Ruby had a relentless <em>sight</em>, her silver gaze gently pulling Blake open. <em>Run, run, </em>the thought beat through her mind like rattling tracks. If she stayed any longer, all the things she kept hidden would be lifted flush into the light.</p><p>(“It’s funny, sometimes I think I could...well, never mind.” Blake let go of her ribbon. She couldn’t, not even here.</p><p>A whisper of feet on the concrete. Closer, maybe. Blake forced herself not to look, to reach, to wish.)</p><p> </p><p>It was slowly, so slowly—between watching her team coalesce, clumsy and stubborn, and hearing Ilia’s footsteps come closer and closer every night, mending the gap—but somehow Blake had almost forgotten. The past was dangerous. Some things could not be bridged, only torn away. And a reminder came with a vengeance.</p><p>It was one of those days that started so pleasant you couldn’t help but distrust it. The weather was sunny and unseasonably warm, and the first class after breakfast was Weapons Care, where something usually exploded. Ruby and Yang were ecstatic. Yang even let Ruby tinker with her gauntlets while she ate, which resulted in an oil-drenched child hanging off her arm as she stuffed melon bites in her mouth.</p><p>“Yang, she’s going to explode the table,” Weiss said flatly. “And <em>us. </em>Please don’t do this.”</p><p>“It’s already done, Weiss Queen. R.I.P.”</p><p>“<em>You—!</em>”</p><p>Pyrrha coughed, interrupting Weiss, who was turning the color of Ruby’s cape. Or, well, the color of Ruby’s cape under the oil stains. “I agree with Weiss. This seems rather...reckless.”</p><p>On cue, Yang’s gauntlets sparked and caught fire. Ruby smothered it with her cape.</p><p>“Who’s dying over here?” Emerald, caustic as ever, approached the table with her usual three trays of food. She scowled as she sidestepped Nora, who was reaching for one of her apples. “Get your own!”</p><p>“But it’s <em>SO FAR</em>!” Nora wailed. (Their table was six feet away from the line for this exact reason. “Too many people between Nora and food,” Ren had intoned ominously, “would be a bloodbath.”)</p><p>Behind her, Cinder was talking with Mercury. From what Blake had seen of the two, which admittedly wasn’t much, she was astonished they got along so well. Cinder was graceful and fluid and wore her not-quite-Valean manners about her like a queen’s dress. Her hair was in an intricate braid; her eyes were lined with kohl. At any moment, some thin courtier could hurry through the doors and announce it was time for her coronation, and Blake wouldn’t even blink.</p><p>And Mercury...well, Mercury looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.</p><p>“Your hair looks awful,” Weiss sniffed, apparently agreeing. Ruby popped up from behind Yang’s arm and waved, her own hair sticking up and smelling awfully of burning.</p><p>“I think it looks nice, Mercury! Oh, hi, Cinder! Did’ja bring Ilia, too?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Mercury pointed to the line behind him, where Ilia was chatting with a lion Faunus. He was smiling widely, gesticulating with his hands. “She always wants to talk with the servers, though. Takes her forever.”</p><p>Weiss squinted at Ilia as if trying to make out the conversation, and Blake felt her stomach sink. Her necklace, always tucked safely in her shirt, felt heavy. Her ribbon felt heavier. “Oh,” Weiss said. “I didn’t know she was friends with a <em>Faunus.</em>”</p><p>The words landed on Blake like acid, and she tried not to flinch. Hot, familiar anger warred with sadness—she had been starting to trust her, to respect her, just enough for this to be freshly disappointing. “Hang on,” Yang said, frowning. “What’s wrong with the Faunus?”</p><p>Weiss’ brow furrowed. “Well, they’re—” She paused, her exhale caught like a jammed bullet. Everyone at the table was staring at her, uncomfortably silent. Nora and Ren were so still Blake thought they might disappear in their seats. “They’re—” But she couldn’t seem to finish.</p><p>After another moment of silence, Pyrrha ventured, in a voice made for TV, “Jaune, are you still having trouble with your sparring—”</p><p>“<em>Hey!</em>” a surly voice snapped from the breakfast line. Blake’s head swiveled, the hair on the back of her neck rising. “Are you gonna serve us or not?”</p><p>It was a boy who had come up behind Ilia, carrying an empty tray. He was one of the first years; Blake had seen him on the podiums. But he carried himself like he was already a Hunter, all bravado and puffed chest and self-aggrandizing suspicion.</p><p>He shoved past Ilia and slammed the tray down.</p><p>The server jumped. “Of course, right away,” he stammered. In his nervousness, he lifted his tail, the golden fur visible under a long, thin net...and curled it around the ladle.</p><p>For a brief moment, Ilia met her eyes over the crowd.</p><p>And then the boy recoiled from the line so violently that the tray clattered to the floor, and in the sharp sound Blake knew how it was going to end. “I’m not touching <em>that</em>! He’s got his damned fur all over it!”</p><p>“I’m very sorry, I’ll get you a new one—”</p><p>“Don’t bother,” the boy said coldly. “Don’t they teach you to keep your <em>parts</em> away from the food, or—”</p><p>“He said he’d get you a new one,” Ilia cut in, “so back off.”</p><p>Blake winced, and so did the server. The world spun around them in an ill-fitting din—the banging of pots in the kitchen, a few cooks arguing over bananas, students groaning about their professors as they dragged themselves to class—but the table was silent. Even Weiss. It was as if they were in the eye of a hurricane, or maybe on the shore, just waiting for it to hit.</p><p>The boy turned to look at Ilia, his lips curled in a sneer. “<em>I’m </em>not the one doing anything wrong. It’s not my fault if these beasts are too dumb to know what I’m talking about. Should just go back to the mines—”</p><p><em>Thwack! </em>Ilia’s fist sailed directly into his face, lightning fast. He was too stunned to even get his Aura up, and Blake heard the telltale bone crunch a split-second before he flew backward and crashed into a stack of trays.</p><p>Yang sucked in a breath. Pyrrha was staring determinedly down at the table, and Ruby, who had gotten up to intervene, paused. Now they finally had the mess hall’s attention, too—Blake could hear the murmurings starting up, like the creaking of an old, dead thing—<em>what’s going on? Oh my god, are they going to fight? She’s crazy! She just punched that dude out of nowhere! Look, is she turning—is she...—oh my god...</em></p><p>Ilia stood defiantly at the center of Beacon’s stare, her skin bright red.</p><p>On the other side of the mess hall, the boy staggered to his feet. His face was smeared with blood, and he was breathing through one nostril—but still, he’d twisted his expression into something far uglier than the damage from Ilia’s fist. “Damn animals!” he snarled. “You’ll regret this, you hear me? I’ll make your life hell!”</p><p>Silence. The hall full of would-be Hunters and Huntresses, the best and brightest of Vale, was silent. Blake’s ears ached and ached.</p><p>Under the scrutiny, Ilia shifted on her feet. For the first time since the spar, that long, painful month ago, she met Blake’s eyes. And Blake cursed the fact that she could read her so well, knew instantly what Ilia wanted her to do, what could not be done...</p><p>Like a deep cut, Ilia’s eyes flicked to her ribbon. <em>Do you have my back</em>?</p><p>And Blake...couldn’t. She just...couldn’t. (<em>Light—heat—“GET OUT!”—“No, don’t—!”—“I’m going to kill them!”—“Stop! PLEASE!”—“Gods, what have we done?”</em>)</p><p>Ilia could read her, too. “Fine,” she snapped—to the boy, who was raging for an answer, but she wasn’t looking at him. It was done.</p><p> </p><p>That night, Blake went back to the roof. <em>If Ilia’s there</em>, she promised herself, <em>I’ll tell her why. I’ll tell her everything</em>.</p><p>But there was nothing but shadows and moonlight.</p><p>           </p><p>Ruby was awake when Blake slipped back into the room. She was usually awake, but Blake still paused before she shook her head and went up to her. They were all trying. And this was her partner. Her partner.</p><p>
  <em>(“Yeah, sure. I've got your back, Blake.”)</em>
</p><p>“Blake,” Ruby said quietly, scooting over as best she could while wrapped in her red cape. Predictably, she unbalanced herself, and Blake reached out to steady her before she fell over. Best not to let their fearless leader break her head open on her toolbox. “Whew, thanks.”</p><p>Blake nodded.</p><p>“What are you thinking about?” Ruby asked after a moment. The question was less like a hook, attempting to pry out conversation from the depths, and more the rest in a melody. Blake could pick it up, let it go on for a few more measures, or let it fade out into the silence.</p><p>“Nothing interesting,” Blake murmured. (<em>Light—heat—“GET OUT!”... “I came here for you!</em>”) Ruby, only looking faintly disappointed, burrowed deeper into her hood. “Did you have another nightmare?”</p><p>Ruby hesitated, then, sliding her silver eyes toward Blake’s placid gaze, nodded. “You can’t tell Yang, though.”</p><p>Blake winced. “I...didn’t know you knew.”</p><p>“Yang’s a good liar sometimes, but I know what she’s like when she’s trying to take care of me.” Ruby wrinkled her nose. “She doesn’t have to do that.”</p><p>“She loves you.”</p><p>“I know.” Ruby’s eyes flickered away. “Still. Do you promise?”</p><p>“I promise.”</p><p>“I was dreaming about Mom again,” said Ruby. She clutched a handful of red fabric in her fist. “I see her standing in the forest, surrounded by Grimm—and she fights and fights, but they keep coming. Waves of it. Oceans. I can hear her screaming when it swallows her.”</p><p>“The Grimm?”</p><p>Ruby shook her head, and there was a kind of contained anger in her eyes that terrified Blake. A familiar rage, held back by sheer force of will and optimism. “No,” she said. “Just...the darkness.”</p><p>Blake shivered, which seemed to bring Ruby back to herself. Her partner smiled. “But that’s why I’m going to be a Huntress,” she said earnestly. “To honor her. To make things better than they were that day, or today. To make sure no one <em>ever</em> needs to have those nightmares again.”</p><p>Despite herself, Blake felt a familiar warmth well in her chest. It was like sunrise over their makeshift tents, like the burn of muscle after morning drills with Ilia. Dirt-caked hands from hammering the shelters together. A searing kiss. The crack in her voice before a hundred others rose up.</p><p>(<em>“Do you really think we can do this?”</em></p><p><em>“Of course I do.”</em>)</p><p>Blake reached down and touched the white shard, all that remained from that day on the train.</p><p>
  <em>Dangerous. So dangerous, this hope.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Remember how I said this would be up pretty quickly if the narrative didn't shift too much? Yeah, well, get used to this quirk of mine: Overestimating My Planning/Writing Abilities!</p><p>Humor aside, this was both fun and nerve-wracking to write. Blake's poetic style is one I love (I might have gone a little overboard, forgive me), and I adore Ilia for being (a great character that causes me pain and heartbreak and) that amazing link to Blake's very complicated past. But this is probably the chapter where the changes to canon get really obvious, and we start to delve seriously into Faunus issues, which...given what canon started out with, doesn't give me a lot of good material to work with. I essentially have to build Adam, the White Fang, and Beacon's institutional issues with the Faunus from scratch. I hope I'm doing them justice. (If I've done something egregiously offensive, please let me know.)</p><p>We'll definitely see more of Blake's history in the chapters to come. Next up: the fallout, and Pyrrha Nikos.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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